The Irkutsk Anti-Plague Institute in Russia, where employee Darya Shipilova became infected and later died, received warnings from oversight bodies for years because of deficiencies in its safety system. At the same time, the institution cooperated with Russia’s Ministry of Defense, while the Russian authorities did not provide the WHO with additional information about the circumstances of the employee’s death. The Wall Street Journal reports this, UNN writes.
Details
The World Health Organization (WHO) appealed to Russia five times with a request to provide additional information about what had happened in order to determine the level of danger associated with Shipilova’s death, the publication writes. However, Russian officials merely repeated their public statement: the woman died of pneumonia of unknown origin.
At the same time, it emerged that the research institute cooperated with Russia’s Ministry of Defense.
"Russian health authorities are very actively hiding from the WHO what is actually happening," microbiologist Alisa Lytovka, who worked in laboratories across Russia but left the country for political reasons, told the WSJ.
For reference
The Irkutsk Research Institute was founded in 1934, when the USSR was forced to actively develop means of combating plague. During the Cold War, one of its directors became the founder of the Soviet program to develop means of protection against Western biochemical weapons. Western scientists claim that the program later became a cover for the development of offensive biological weapons, in which plague transmitted through aerosols played a significant role.
The ties between the institute and the Ministry of Defense remain, the publication writes, after analyzing government procurement data. Last year, they jointly worked on modernizing a laboratory: the ministry’s funds were used to equip it with new equipment.