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submitted 22 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago) by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/world@lemmy.world

Darya Shipilova is said to have been exposed to the pathogen while working at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute in Siberia

Hundreds of people have been placed into quarantine in Siberia after a laboratory worker died of suspected plague, according to reports.

Darya Shipilova, an employee at the Anti-Plague Research Institute in Shelekhov, was exposed to the bacteria after she accidentally broke a test tube containing the pathogen while she was collecting samples, the Kyiv Independent reported.

She was hospitalised on 29 September with severe pneumonia of "unknown origin” and placed on a ventilator, but died shortly after.

Independent Russian outlet Lyudi Baikal reported that several hospitals in the city of Irkutsk had closed for a three-week quarantine.

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[-] mobyduck648@lemmy.world 29 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

My 'favourite' fact about Soviet-era bioweapons is that they had a facility on an island in the Aral Sea. Said sea vanished from existence after the Kremlin redirected all the rivers which fed it in an effort to grow cotton in the desert, causing it to shrink to some 10% or less of its original volume. As well as destroying the livelihoods of the fishermen of Aralsk in Kazakhstan, it also made the island full of fucking anthrax among other things part of the mainland.

I'll say this for the Soviets, they didn't do environmental disasters by halves. Also as a Briton we had our own anthrax island in Scotland from the war that was only decontaminated in the '90s.

this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2026
598 points (99.3% liked)

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