Short answer: No, according to the World Health Organization. On Tuesday, October 6, 2026, WHO said a possible case of pneumonic plague in Russia presents a “very low” risk outside the country. The case involves a woman who worked at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute of Siberia and the Far East and died of pneumonia last week at a hospital in Shelekhov, a town just outside Irkutsk; the town’s mayor said the hospital was placed under quarantine.
Russian health officials told WHO that they had traced the woman’s contacts, monitored them medically and tested them, and that “test results showed no presence of dangerous infectious disease pathogens in any of the contacts.” They said monitoring of all contacts had concluded and the epidemiological situation was stable. Pneumonic plague, the lung form of the disease caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, can spread between people through respiratory particles and can be fatal if untreated, but WHO says recovery rates are high when it is treated within 24 hours of symptoms starting.
Image: Yersinia pestis bacteria, CDC / Larry Stauffer, Oregon State Public Health Laboratory, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.