Russia should disclose more information about the death of an employee of a laboratory specializing in plague, which occurred last week, said on Tuesday the United States Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, referring to an incident Washington was monitoring “very closely”.
An employee of the plague research institute in Siberia fell ill and died under undisclosed circumstances on Friday, prompting authorities to quarantine dozens of people and generating public health fears on social media.
Russian authorities stated that the situation is under control.
“I think it’s up to Russia, obviously, to share more information with the world,” Rubio told reporters in Iceland. “We are watching the situation very closely, hour by hour.”
Rubio said that the United States has measures to help Russia if the situation proves to be more serious than acknowledged so far, but they needed to know more before they could intervene.
The President Donald Trump told reporters on Tuesday that he had a call scheduled very soon with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin.
When asked about what the intelligence agencies were saying about the situation in Russia, Trump replied: “As of now, we are in very in-depth discussions; we will probably be able to comment on the subject tomorrow.”
