Washington, DC, October 6 (ANI): US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Washington is closely monitoring a suspected plague case involving a laboratory employee in Russia amid concerns that the infection may have spread internally.
He noted that Washington’s intelligence about the incident remains limited to information provided by Russian officials, though US authorities are closely watching the situation because of the risk that infectious diseases could spread beyond their initial source.
Addressing reporters at Joint Base Andrews before departing for a European trip, Rubio said, “We don’t – we know what we know, obviously, about whatever the Russians have provided, which is it seems that there was a worker at the lab that was infected, and there’s concern that that could have spread, at least internally.”
He further said, “So you’ve seen them do quarantines with this – of that nature.”
Rubio emphasized that travel between the United States and Russia remains limited but said Washington is taking the situation seriously because of the potential for wider transmission.
“There’s very limited travel between the US and Russia, obviously. But like anything else, something like that gets out, it could quickly spread,” he said.
He added, “So we’re watching and monitoring it closely. I don’t think it’s cause for alarm, but it is cause for focus and a cause to just keep an eye on it, and we’re doing that.”
Rubio did not identify the Russian facility, the location of the suspected contamination or the specific strain of plague involved. He also did not clarify whether US personnel had independently verified the infection.
His remarks suggested that the information available to Washington came directly from Moscow.
The comments came during a broader discussion with reporters covering several issues, including Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, US military troop deployments in Britain and the administration’s long-term national security strategy.
When asked separately about Moscow urging foreign diplomatic personnel stationed in Kyiv to evacuate the Ukrainian capital, Rubio said Russian authorities have issued similar advisories over several months.
He said the United States maintains its diplomatic presence in Kyiv and will independently assess security conditions there.
“We analyze every single day the safety of every diplomatic mission in the world, and if a threat arises that we feel needs to be addressed by a change in posture, we’ll do so,” Rubio said.
He added, “We haven’t done that up to this point there.”
Rubio also faced questions about the relocation of US bomber aircraft from RAF Fairford in Britain following a security alert the previous week.
He cautioned against directly linking the aircraft movements to the security warning, explaining that US military equipment and personnel are frequently rotated and repositioned.
“The Department of War is constantly reallocating resources where they need to be,” he said.
When asked whether Washington continues to have confidence in British security measures protecting the installation, Rubio responded affirmatively.
“We have confidence in the security of all of our bases, because all of our bases are theoretically – could be threatened at any moment, and that’s why there’s so much security built around them,” he said.
Rubio said British officials worked closely with the United States throughout the investigation into the security threat.
Plague is an infectious disease caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis and occurs in several forms, including bubonic, septicemic and pneumonic plague. The risk of transmission varies by form, with pneumonic plague capable of spreading between people through respiratory droplets. (ANI)
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