Moscow notified the World Health Organization (WHO) of the death of a laboratory employee at a Siberian plague research institute through the standard channels, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said today, while accusing the press of circulating inaccurate claims about the affair.

Peskov was replying to an ABC News report that Washington had filed a formal diplomatic objection to how Russia has handled the death and had urged Moscow to be more open about what happened. He said he knew nothing of any US request for clarification.

The woman has been named in Russian media as Daria Shipilova, 28, a technician at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Institute in Shelekhov, on the edge of Irkutsk. Local outlets and Telegram channels first claimed she had died of pneumonic plague after smashing a vial of the bacterium, and that hospitals in the area had been placed under quarantine. Rospotrebnadzor, the Russian public health agency, rejects that version. It says no incident occurred at the institute while staff handled dangerous pathogens, and that its tests found nothing in her body connected to her work. According to the agency, a few of those examined had ordinary colds or Covid, but nobody carried a pathogen responsible for a dangerous disease.

Regional governor Igor Kobzev said on Monday that she died of pneumonia whose cause had not been established. The agency’s Irkutsk office also dismissed online reports of tightened sanitary rules and strict restrictions across the region as untrue, and said conditions in Irkutsk and Shelekhov were stable.

About 200 people who had been in touch with Shipilova have been traced and placed under observation, and the agency reported yesterday that none had developed plague. Residents told reporters that daily life had been barely affected, though others spoke to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation of doubts about official statements, saying they suspected the seriousness was being understated.

The WHO said Russian officials had informed it that no plague case had been logged in Irkutsk, and that the woman’s illness first looked like a common respiratory viral infection. A WHO spokesperson described the danger to the general public as low. Its preliminary assessment places the risk at moderate to low locally, low across Russia and very low for the wider European region, though the organisation is still trying to confirm details with Russian officials.

Peskov said the Kremlin appreciated an offer of assistance from US President Donald Trump, but he did not appear to share Trump’s view that the matter posed a serious problem for Russia. No telephone call between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Trump has been arranged, Peskov said, even though Trump said yesterday that he would speak to Putin shortly. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says it is keeping track of the reports.