Rubio Asks Russia to Share More Information About Plague Death

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Tuesday that Russia should share more information about the death of a plague laboratory worker who died last week, an incident which he said Washington was watching “very closely.”

“I think it’s incumbent upon Russia to obviously share more information with the world,” Rubio told reporters in Iceland. “We’re watching it very closely, hour by hour.”

A laboratory worker at Siberia’s plague research institute fell ill and died in undisclosed circumstances on Friday, prompting authorities to quarantine dozens of people, and sparking public health fears on social media. (Editor’s note: The plague research institute is located in Irkutsk, a city in the Siberian Federal District of eastern Russia.)

Russian authorities have said the situation is under control.

Rubio said the US has “measures” available to help Russia if the situation turns out to be more serious than has so far been acknowledged, but needed to know more before it could step in.

US President Donald Trump said on Monday that the United States will help Russia, adding that the outbreak is a “big problem for Russia.”

(Reporting by Jonathan Landay and William James, writing by Sarah Young)