Australia on alert as mystery Russian plague outbreak sparks fears of lab leak

Australia is keeping a close eye on a suspected plague outbreak in Russia, now rumoured to have claimed a second life.

The federal government insists there’s no elevated risk here yet, but Moscow is keeping the details of a potential lab leak shrouded in secrecy.

WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Australia keeping watch on Russia’s suspected plague outbreak

Two hundred people have been quarantined after a lab worker studying plague suddenly died at a facility in an isolated part of Siberia.

The Kremlin says it wasn’t the plague, rather pneumonia, and is adamant the facility was not making bioweapons.

“We don’t yet have the full picture of this event,” Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles said.

“Verifiable information in relation to this is quite limited, but the Australian Centre for Disease Control is very much working with its international counterparts.”

Australia’s last case of plague was a century ago, but the nation still prepares for it.

The Health Department lists it as a biological weapons risk, and an attack or a natural outbreak activates a National Health Response.

Under the plan, suspected cases would be hospitalised and isolated. Close contacts would be monitored and given preventative antibiotics. Anyone refusing would be quarantined.

Medical stockpiles are also kept, their locations and contents a secret.

“There are antibiotics that can treat against this, so if anyone does have an infection with plague, it can be treated,” WHO Pandemic Management Director Dr Maria Van Kerkhove said.

“There is no elevated risk to Australians as a result of what is being reported out of Russia.”

The developments come as US President Donald Trump plans to ask his own questions of a now 74-year-old Vladimir Putin.

Russia denies second infection

Russia’s public health watchdog denies that a lab worker who died in Siberia had spread infection to another person, as global concerns swirl about suspected pneumonic plague.

Rospotrebnadzor has said the lab worker at a plague research institute in Irkutsk in southeastern Siberia died of pneumonia of unknown origin.

In tersely worded statements on Thursday, it said “extensive” testing found no evidence her illness was caused by any of the pathogens she worked with, and it informed the World Health Organisation that no case of plague had been registered in the Irkutsk region.

In Thursday’s statement, Rospotrebnadzor rejected reports about a second person falling ill after coming into contact with the lab worker as fake.

It did not offer any new information about the lab worker’s illness and death or reasons behind the sprawling emergency measures in the region.

With AAP.