Trump says he will call Putin about plague, and Russia says there is no plague

Donald Trump stood on the White House South Lawn on Tuesday and talked about a bacterium as if it were an enemy force.

"Somehow those microbes have gotten stronger and smarter," he told reporters. "They're like an army."

He meant the suspected case of pneumonic plague in Siberia. And he said he would be talking to Vladimir Putin about it "very soon".

As of Wednesday 7 October, neither the White House nor the Kremlin has confirmed the call took place. This story is developing.

If you missed how it started, read our account of the lab technician who died inside Irkutsk's anti-plague institute and the quarantine that followed. Here is everything that has moved since.

Has the Trump and Putin call happened yet?

Not that anyone has announced. Trump said the call was scheduled and that the US was in "very deep discussions" about the case. "We'll be able to report about it, probably tomorrow," he said.

Tomorrow is today. And today is Putin's 74th birthday.

His foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov says Putin will take a series of calls from foreign leaders on the day, and that nothing about the talks will be concealed. That has fuelled talk that Trump's plague call could arrive with the birthday wishes. Neither side has confirmed it.

What has the Kremlin said to Trump?

So far, polite words. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday that Moscow took Trump's offer of help positively, and that it is always good when mutual assistance is offered, according to Russian news agency Interfax.

In the same breath, Peskov said he had not heard Trump call the situation a big problem for Russia. He told everyone to rely on Rospotrebnadzor, the health watchdog, which he said gives exhaustive information.

Russia is welcoming the help while insisting there is nothing to help with.

What is Washington asking Russia for?

Data. Interfax reports that the US is preparing a formal diplomatic request, called a demarche, asking for information about the infection in Irkutsk.

The point is a reminder that Russia must share news of disease outbreaks with other countries in time. Secretary of State Marco Rubio put it plainly. "It is incumbent upon Russia to obviously share more information with the world."

An unnamed administration official said travel restrictions on people arriving from Russia have not yet been considered.

Rubio also tried to calm nerves. He said the US is watching closely, but does not think it is "cause for alarm", and pointed out that there is very limited travel between the US and Russia.

Not everyone in Washington was so calm. Republican congressman Don Bacon, a senior member of the House armed services committee, turned Russia's old claims about secret labs in Ukraine back on Moscow. "In reality," he wrote, "it is Russia with the bio labs."

Photo: Ad Meskens / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

Is the US ready for plague?

The CDC says it is calm and watching. "At this time, there is no indication of a broader threat to the United States, but CDC and our interagency partners are prepared and will continue to monitor the situation closely," the agency posted.

The US Embassy in Moscow has issued a health alert. It warns that the US government has limited ability to help Americans in Russia, especially outside Moscow.

What does the WHO say now?

Its risk rating has not moved. WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier said in Geneva that the risk is moderate to low for Irkutsk, low for Russia as a whole, and very low for the WHO European region.

He added there is "currently no indication that we are dealing with anything similar to the pandemic".

The agency is stretched this week, with Ebola now confirmed in Kenya. Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus still found time to send Moscow a pointed line. "Timely, complete and transparent information sharing under the International Health Regulations is essential."

Has Russia shared its test results?

Only the conclusions. Russia has told the WHO that no plague case has recently been registered in the Irkutsk region, and that monitoring of 100% of the contacts is finished, with no dangerous pathogens found in any of them.

What Moscow has not published is the lab data behind that, or exactly which tests it ran. That gap is the reason the demarche exists.

Photo: Юрий Д.К. / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0

Did a second person die?

That is still a claim, not a fact. Russian media reported that a second, unidentified person died at a hospital in the Irkutsk region after allegedly catching plague.

No lab results or official evidence link that death to plague, and Russian authorities have not acknowledged it. The WHO says it has asked Russia about reports of a second employee with pneumonia of undetermined cause.

What else is riding on the call?

A lot. Trump faces an 18 October deadline for his first decisions under the Graham Act, a sanctions law he signed on 18 September. It targets Putin himself, his ministers and military chiefs, and allows tariffs of up to 100% on the biggest buyers of Russian oil and gas.

So plague will not be the only thing on the line. It may be the one subject where both men already say they want the same thing.

What happens next?

Three things to watch today. The report Trump promised, the Kremlin's readout of the birthday calls, and whether Moscow answers the WHO with real lab results.

Ushakov has promised that nothing about Putin's birthday calls will be hidden. If Trump is on that list, the Kremlin's own words will tell the world within hours whether Irkutsk came up, and what Putin said when the President of the United States asked him straight.