Russia’s Plague Mystery: Why U.S. Officials Want Answers

A Russian laboratory worker is dead.

Hospitals have been quarantined.

Contacts have been monitored.

And U.S. officials are asking Moscow for more information.

But what actually happened remains uncertain.

In Episode 310 of The Secret War on Cash, Dean Heskin and Chris Agelastos of Swiss America Trading examine the developing mystery surrounding the death of a 28-year-old worker at the Irkutsk Antiplague Research Institute of Siberia and the Far East.

The worker died after being diagnosed with pneumonia of unknown origin.

The institute she worked for studies plague as well as other dangerous diseases.

Reports of her death quickly drew international attention after Russian authorities implemented anti-epidemic measures and quarantined the medical facility where she had been treated.

The Washington Post reported that U.S. agencies including the CDC, State Department and other health and national-security organizations were seeking more information.

But there is an important distinction.

Russian authorities have not confirmed that the woman died from pneumonic plague.