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"/app/node_modules/readability-extractor/readability-extractor", "/tmp/tmpdd7jrt1a", "https://www.the-sun.com/news/17103428/russia-plague-bioweapon-leak-siberia-lab-fears/" ], "cmd_version": "0.0.11", "end_ts": "2026-10-06T13:30:54.388498+00:00", "index_texts": [ "FEARS are growing that Vladimir Putin is hiding the truth about a suspected plague lab leak as experts warn the disease may have been weaponised.\n\n\n\nDaria Shipilova, 28,\u00a0fell ill after accidentally dropping and breaking a test tube containing plague bacteria\u00a0at a research institute, reports say.\n\n\nDaria Shipilova, 28, fell ill after accidentally breaking a test tube containing plague bacteria Credit: East2West\n\nExperts are now warning that the deadly deadly bug could have been tampered with for biological warfare Credit: Getty\n\n\nShe is said to have been working with Yersinia pestis \u2013 the bacterium behind plague and the medieval Black Death. \n\n\n\nDaria become unwell during a research expedition in Buryatia, on Russia\u2019s eastern frontier with Mongolia, to study plague-infested squirrels before being placed on a ventilator on September 29.\n\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for The US Sun newsletter\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\tThank you!\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\n\n\n\n\nThe young scientist later died in hospital from what Russian health officials described only as \u201cpneumonia of unknown aetiology\u201d.\n\n\n\nHer sudden death sparked the immediate\u00a0quarantine\u00a0of 189 people who had been in contact with her at the lab in Shelekhov \u2013 and the World Health Organisation has asked for information from Russia. \n\t\t\n\n\t\t\n\n\nMoscow flatly denies there was ever a laboratory accident.\n\n\n\nRussian officials insist extensive testing found no microorganism linked to Daria\u2019s work and maintain there is no plague outbreak.\n\n\n\nBut the huge containment operation and scramble to lockdown hospitals has sparked fears of a wider cover-up \u2013 and raised questions about what was really going on inside the Siberian lab. \n\n\n\nSpeaking to Sam Homewood in The Sun\u2019s new studio, chemical and biological weapons expert Hamish de Bretton-Gordon warned: \u201cIt is not beyond the bounds of possibility that they have an active biological weapons program.\u201d\n\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMost read in The US Sun\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\n\n\nA worker in full protective gear is filmed by residents of Shelekhov in Russia\u2019s Irkutsk Region Credit: East2West\n\nHospitals have faced quarantine measures and events have been axed in a Covid-style clampdown Credit: East2West\n\n\nHe added: \u201cBecause regulation is so poor, particularly in Russia, some of the scientists and some of these laboratories can possibly be used for really malign and malicious and dangerous activities. \n\n\n\n\u201cWe now know there is a potential for some sort of plague-type pathogen to be travelling around.\u201d\n\n\n\nThe expert questioned why a vaccine didn\u2019t save Daria \u2013 particularly when it is usual practice for laboratory workers to be vaccinated against the diseases they work with. \n\n\n\nIt suggests Daria was working with a new strain of the plague that did not have a vaccine. \n\n\n\nProfessor Simon Clarke, head of biomedical sciences at the University of Reading, warned that plague bacterium Yersinia pestis could potentially be weaponised. \n\n\n\nHe told The Sun: \u201cThis pathogen does have potential to be used as a bioweapon. It is no secret that could be something they were working on.\n\n\n\n\u201cThere is speculation from a bioweapons perspective that antibiotic-resistant versions of the bacteria, Yersinia pestis, may have been developed in order to make them more difficult to treat.\u201d\n\n\n\nHe added: \u201cUnder Putin, Russia has revived and increased investment in its illegal biological weapons program, at least at three military biological laboratories in Sergiyev Posad, Kirov, and Yekaterinburg.\u201d\n\n\nDaria worked with Yersinia pestis \u2013 the bacterium behind plague and the medieval Black Death Credit: East2West\n\nNeighbouring countries have also tightened precautions amid fears over the mystery illness Credit: East2West\n\n\nNow, the dramatic Kremlin response has caused a growing international alarm with experts warning the UK should be on high alert. \n\n\n\nDr Andrew Weber, who has been inside anti-plague laboratories across the former Soviet Union, said UK health chiefs should consider screening passengers while the Kremlin remains tight-lipped over exactly what killed Daria.\n\n\n\nThe former US Department of Defence worker told The Sun: \u201cIf I were a public health authority in London, I would be monitoring flights and passengers coming from the region and screening them at the airport.\u201d\n\n\n\nDonald Trump has now offered to help Russia tackle the crisis as Washington monitors the mysterious death.\n\n\n\nThe US president said: \u201cWe\u2019re looking at it very strongly. We just heard about it, and they call it pneumonia. And pneumonia, you know, years ago you could treat pneumonia easier.\n\n\n\n\u201cThe microbes and the germs have gotten stronger disproportionately, but we\u2019ll help them.\u201d\n\n\n\nTrump warned the microbes had become \u201cstronger and smarter\u201d, adding: \u201cThey\u2019re like an army.\u201d\n\n\n\nUS Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Washington was \u201cwatching and monitoring it closely\u201d, warning such an outbreak \u201ccould quickly spread\u201d.\n\n\nTeam of Irkutsk anti-plague institute experts conducts anthrax-response drill Credit: East2West\n\nA Russian-Mongolian plague team on an August 2026 expedition to a transborder disease hotspot Credit: East2West\n\n\nHamish, meanwhile, drew a chilling comparison with the pandemic that brought the world to a standstill.\n\n\n\nHe said: \u201cCovid was a very transmissible but a very low potency pathogen. Covid killed less than one per cent of people infected.\n\n\n\n\u201cNow plague is something quite different. It has a mortality rate between 50 per cent and 100 per cent untreated.\u201d\n\n\n\nThe warnings come as a wall of Kremlin secrecy surrounds exactly what happened to Daria inside the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute.\n\n\n\nShe died on October 2 from what officials described as \u201cpneumonia of unknown aetiology\u201d.\n\n\n\nBut Moscow\u2019s huge response has fuelled questions over why such drastic precautions were needed.\n\n\n\nAlmost 200 people linked to Daria have been placed under observation, while dozens of her colleagues have been confined inside the institute, according to reports. \n\n\n\nHospitals have faced quarantine measures, events have been axed and workers at a giant aluminium plant ordered to wear masks.\n\n\nA team of Russia\u2019s Irkutsk anti-plague institute during laboratory work Credit: East2West\n\nRussian officials insist extensive testing found no microorganism linked to Daria\u2019s work Credit: East2West\n\n\nNeighbouring countries have also tightened precautions amid fears over the mystery illness.\n\n\n\nHamish said the secretive response bore the hallmarks of an old Soviet playbook.\n\n\n\nHe said: \u201cThis is classic Russian or Soviet-type doctrine when a disaster happens to completely close down the networks.\u201d\n\n\n\nAnd he questioned Moscow\u2019s official explanation.\n\n\n\nHe said: \u201cIf it was pneumonia, we wouldn\u2019t be seeing all the activity by military personnel in protective equipment.\u201d\n\n\n\nAnother puzzle, he said, was how a scientist working inside a specialist plague facility could have died if exposed to an ordinary strain of the treatable disease.\n\n\n\nHe said: \u201cWhy did the vaccine not stop this strain of plague? \n\n\n\n\u201cAnd secondly, the laboratory presumably would be full of medical countermeasures, ostensibly antibiotics. Plague is generally very treatable.\n\n\n\n\u201cMaybe the plague that was being worked on in this lab was different to bubonic plague, the Black Death, or pneumonic plague that we\u2019re seeing.\n\n\n\n\u201cAnd the vaccines and the medical countermeasures have not been able to prevent this girl from being killed by it.\u201d\n\n\n\nHe warned that rapidly advancing technology has transformed scientists\u2019 ability to manipulate dangerous pathogens.\n\n\n\n\u201cAI is incredibly good at helping people particularly manipulate the genome and do what we call gain-of-function activities on pathogens to make them more dangerous,\u201d he said. \n\n\n\nAdding to the intrigue, Russia\u2019s chief state sanitary doctor Anna Popova flew some 2,600 miles from Moscow to Irkutsk to oversee the response to a \u201cparticularly dangerous infection\u201d.\n\n\n\nLocals have meanwhile described hospitals being sealed and institute workers forced to sleep on floors and chairs while isolated.\n\n\n\nOne resident said: \u201cThe more they reassure us, the more frightening it gets.\u201d\n\n\n\nRussian authorities continue to insist the epidemiological situation is stable and there is no evidence of a plague outbreak.\n\n\n\nBut Hamish said Moscow\u2019s apparent reluctance to seek international assistance only deepened concern.\n\n\n\nHe said: \u201cThe fact that it\u2019s happening in isolation, the fact that we\u2019re all starting to talk about it, is a real concern. \n\n\n\n\u201cAnd the fact that the Russians are trying to ignore it and not asking for international help again, is a bit of a concern.\u201d\n\n\n\nThe World Health Organisation said it deemed the public health risk in Russia to be low \u2013 but the country has not yet formally responded to its request for further details. \n\n\n\nThe UN health agency\u2019s spokesman Christian Lindmeier said: \u201cThe illness initially presented as a typical acute respiratory viral infection.\n\n\n\n\u201cAccording to the test results, no pathogens of dangerous infectious diseases were detected among any of the contacts.\n\n\n\n\u201cWHO is following the situation closely, working with headquarters to keep other countries informed.\u201d\n\n\t\n\nComment now" ], "output": "readability", "pwd": "/data/archive/1791285307.933157", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-10-06T13:30:51.110291+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "screenshot": [], "singlefile": [], "title": [ { "cmd": [ "curl", "--silent", "--location", "--compressed", "--max-time", "120", "--user-agent", "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) curl/curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "https://www.the-sun.com/news/17103428/russia-plague-bioweapon-leak-siberia-lab-fears/" ], "cmd_version": "curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "end_ts": "2026-10-06T13:30:51.102466+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "Is Russia 'plague' a bioweapon leak? 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