Russia Says Lab Worker Died of Unexplained Pneumonia as NIH Fox Grant Is Tied to a Separate Siberian Institute

A lab technician at a Russian plague research institute is dead, nearly 200 people were put under observation, and the cause of death is still officially unexplained.

Darya Shipilova, 28, worked at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute of Siberia and the Far East. Local reporting, which Russian authorities have not confirmed, says she broke a test tube holding live bacteria in a Sept. 25 lab incident. She was hospitalized Sept. 29 and died Oct. 2.

What Russia says

Russia's health regulator, Rospotrebnadzor, says she died of pneumonia of unknown cause. It says its investigation found no incidents involving the handling of dangerous pathogens at the institute. Irkutsk Governor Igor Kobzev said she died of "pneumonia of unknown etiology" and that no new cases among institute staff had been identified.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told TASS on Oct. 5 that Russians should rely on Rospotrebnadzor "without listening to various rumors and speculation."

Rospotrebnadzor says about 60% of the identified contacts have been tested. The results: two COVID-19 cases and two rhinovirus infections. No plague, no other infectious disease pathogens.

The hospital that treated her was closed for quarantine. The institute's regional branch dismissed reports of a stepped-up sanitary regime as fake, even as Rospotrebnadzor described "a special set of measures."

What outsiders are saying

The independent outlet Lyudi Baikala, citing unnamed sources, reported she died of pneumonic plague and that several Irkutsk hospitals were quarantined. Russian authorities have not confirmed plague.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Tuesday, Oct. 6, that the agency has seen no evidence of plague spreading. He said that assessment depends heavily on information from Russian authorities, and he hinted Moscow has been less forthcoming than the WHO would like. The WHO says Russia told it no plague or other high-threat pathogen was found among close contacts, but the cause of her fatal pneumonia is still unconfirmed.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters Oct. 5 that the White House is "watching and monitoring." A Health and Human Services spokesperson said the CDC is tracking the case with the State Department. Trump said he has a call with Vladimir Putin scheduled "very soon" and, according to Times Now, that the U.S. does not currently believe the incident involved a biological weapon.

Marshall Billingslea, Trump's former special envoy for arms control, went further on X. He said Soviet bioweapons defector Ken Alibek told him Irkutsk was involved in the Soviet program and that Russia had engineered antibiotic-resistant plague. "This may not be just 'the plague.' It may be far worse," Billingslea wrote. That is his account of what a defector told him decades ago. No source here shows it applies to this death.

The NIH grant

The White Coat Waste Project, a group that campaigns against taxpayer-funded animal testing, obtained federal records showing the National Institutes of Health sent $779,689 to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The money came in two payments: $389,943 in July 2025 and $389,746 in September 2026.

The Illinois team works with Russia's Institute of Cytology and Genetics in Novosibirsk. That institute has separately collaborated on plague research with the Irkutsk institute, according to the records the group cited.

The Illinois project itself has nothing to do with plague. It studies the genetics of social behavior in foxes bred for tameness and aggression at a Siberian facility. White Coat Waste says the animals are put down and their brain tissue is shipped to Illinois. One University of Illinois report put total NIH funding for the fox work at $1.22 million.

The money went to the American university, not to either Russian institute. Nothing in the records shows NIH money reaching the Irkutsk lab, the suspected incident, or the American researchers' involvement in it. Novosibirsk and Irkutsk are different institutions.

The Daily Beast framed the grants as awkward for Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has spent years warning about lab-research risks. The outlet also noted that last year's Trump executive order restricting gain-of-function research came with the statement that "there's no laboratory that does this right." Kennedy has not been accused of directing these grants, and the timing is a coincidence of calendars, not a documented link. NIH grants of this kind are typically multi-year awards, and the first payment came in July 2025.

The taxpayer question is a separate and fair one. White Coat Waste's argument is that American money is paying for animal research with a state-run Russian institute. Whether HHS should be funding any Russian state-run partner is a policy call, and it can be asked without pinning the Irkutsk death on a fox study.

What comes next

The Trump-Putin call has no announced date beyond "very soon." The WHO is still waiting on Moscow to confirm what caused the fatal pneumonia. Roughly 40% of the identified contacts had not been reported tested as of the latest Russian figures.

No independent body has examined the Irkutsk institute or Shipilova's medical records. Until Russia releases a confirmed cause of death, the plague question stays open.