GENEVA
\nThe WHO said Wednesday it wanted more information from Russia on the death of a plague laboratory technician \u2014 and on reports of \u201ca second employee with pneumonia of undetermined cause.\u201d The World Health Organization\u2019s chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said full transparency was needed in order to make a proper assessment of the public health risk.
\nHe reiterated that the WHO stood ready to help Moscow with technical support, if asked. \u201cWHO has been actively following up on the reported death of a laboratory worker at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute,\u201d he said on X.
\n\u201cThe individual died on October 2, 2026 after being hospitalized with severe pneumonia. Initial media reports suggested pneumonic plague following an alleged accidental laboratory exposure.\u201d On Saturday the WHO contacted the Russian authorities to get more information, under the International Health Regulations.
\nThe IHR provide a legally binding framework defining countries\u2019 rights and obligations in handling public health events and emergencies that could cross borders, and countries are asked to respond within 24 hours. Russia got back to the WHO on Tuesday.
\n\u201cWHO has requested further information to clarify the cause of the severe pneumonia, the pathogen that prompted the public health measures, and media reports of a second employee with pneumonia of undetermined cause,\u201d said Tedros.
\n\u201cTimely, complete and transparent information sharing under the International Health Regulations is essential to clarify conflicting reports and enable an accurate assessment of potential public health risks.\u201d The WHO\u2019s initial risk assessment from the information available estimates the risk to be moderate to low for the Irkutsk region; low for Russia as a whole; and very low for Europe.
\nAt a speech in Tanzania on Tuesday to parliamentarians from around the world, Tedros said international cooperation on health was \u201cindispensable.\u201d \u201cViruses do not respect borders,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
GENEVA The WHO said Wednesday it wanted more information from Russia on the death of a plague laboratory technician \u2014 and on reports of \u201ca second employee with pneumonia of undetermined cause.\u201d The World Health Organization\u2019s chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said full transparency was needed in order to make a proper assessment of the public …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":104079,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-104063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104063"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104063\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":104085,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104063\/revisions\/104085"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}