US President Donald Trump speaks to members of the media on the South Lawn of the White House after arriving on Marine One in Washington, DC, US, on Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026. Trump said he has a call scheduled with Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss a suspected plague case, amid growing global health concerns over the incident. Photographer: Bonnie Cash/UPI/Bloomberg via Getty Images
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U.S. President Donald Trump said Tuesday stateside that he was set to speak with Russian President Vladimir Putin about the death of a laboratory worker from a suspected case of plague in Siberia.
Trump said the call was scheduled for “very soon” when asked by a reporter about the timing at a White House press gaggle. Asked separately what U.S. intelligence agencies were saying about the incident, Trump said, “So far, we are in very deep discussions. We’ll be able to report about it probably tomorrow.”
Trump’s, who has said in the past that Putin is someone he can work with despite tensions over Moscow’s war in Ukraine, on Monday offered U.S. help to Russia over the deadly plague incident.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, said in a post on X Wednesday that it “is aware of and closely monitoring reports of a suspected case of pneumonic plague in the Irkutsk region of Russia that resulted in a death.”
The U.S. public health agency said the circumstances surrounding the case remain unconfirmed. Pneumonic plague can spread from person to person through respiratory droplets during close contact, the CDC said.
However, the CDC said that “at this time, there is no indication of a broader threat to the United States,” adding that it and its interagency partners were prepared and would continue to closely monitor the situation.
The World Health Organization has told CNBC that it assesses the risk to the general public as low, based on available information.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a post on X that the agency had requested further information from Russian health authorities to clarify the cause of the severe pneumonia and the pathogen involved. “Timely, complete and transparent information sharing” is essential to assess potential public health risks, he said
