🔸WHO pressure on Moscow to clarify following death of Russian researcher

Following the death of a 28-year-old scientist and laboratory technician at a plague research center in Siberia, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the U.S. government have called on Russian authorities to provide clarification and details of the laboratory analyses in this case.

In this regard, Donald Trump, the U.S. president, announced his decision to hold a direct telephone conversation with Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, in order to examine this matter.

The victim worked at the institute for the fight against plague, and on Friday died in a hospital in the city of Shelkhov near Irkutsk, Siberia.

However, Russian health officials have strongly rejected the claim of plague infection and have announced the official cause of the researcher’s death as pneumonia of unspecified origin.

Pneumonic plague is a severe and deadly infection caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, which can be treated with antibiotics if diagnosed in time. According to the Robert Koch Institute in Germany, this disease still exists in parts of Africa, the Americas, and Asia.