Washington, Oct 7 (IANS): US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the United States and international agencies are monitoring a suspected plague case in Russia “hour by hour”, while urging Moscow to provide more information to the world.
Rubio declined to speculate on whether the case could be linked to an accidental release of an intentionally modified strain, saying available information remained limited.
“Any time you hear that there’s some disease that infected someone in a lab anywhere in the world, you’re going to be concerned about it,” Rubio said during a joint media availability with Icelandic Foreign Minister Thorgerdur Katrin Gunnarsdottir in Reykjavik.
Asked about reports of a fatal suspected plague case in Siberia and whether it could involve an altered strain, Rubio said it would be premature to draw conclusions.
“It would be irresponsible for me here to sit and speculate because we just don’t have all the information yet,” he said.
Rubio called on Russia to provide greater transparency about the case.
“I think it’s incumbent upon Russia to obviously share more information with the world. That’s what they should do. That’s what we hope they will do,” he said.
The Secretary of State stressed that Washington had not reached any conclusion about the nature or seriousness of the incident.
“Maybe, you know, there’s nothing there. Maybe it’s bigger than we thought. We don’t know,” Rubio said.
He said the United States was nevertheless closely following developments because more information could determine what response might be necessary.
“We’re watching it very closely, and I think the whole world is watching it very closely because depending on what we learn about it, we would know how to respond,” he said.
Rubio said measures were already available if authorities determine the situation is more serious than currently acknowledged.
“We already, you know, have measures in place to be able to address it if it’s — if it’s something more serious than what so far has been acknowledged,” he said.
He added that several US and international agencies were involved in monitoring the situation.
“We’re watching it very closely, hour by hour. We have multiple agencies, not just in the United States but internationally, that are watching it,” Rubio said.
“We encourage Russia to be transparent and share more information with the world, so that all of us could react accordingly and appropriately.”
Rubio said decisions would depend on information received in the coming period. “So far, that’s still quite limited, but hopefully that will change in the next few hours and days,” he said.
