The message appeared on the official Telegram channel of the Baikalsk administration on the morning of October 3 and disappeared two hours later. The outlet Lyudi Baikala noticed the deletion; an archived copy of the post was preserved by the monitoring service TGStat.
In the appeal, the authorities cited "unofficial information" about a confirmed human case of plague in Shelekhov and asked residents to limit visits to the city and surrounding settlements "until the circumstances are clarified." The administration gave no public explanation for removing the post.
REN TV also deleted five publications about the suspected plague case. The day before, the channel, citing a source, reported that 189 people had been in contact with a woman who died: 114 were said to have been hospitalized in one facility, 63 in another, and 12 more placed under observation at a plague research institute. Other media outlets quoted the figures before the original publications were deleted.
A quarantine has been in effect at the Shelekhovskaya District Hospital since October 1. The head of the Shelekhovsky district, Maxim Modin, confirmed that admissions and discharges were suspended in several departments and that the laboratory had temporarily stopped work. He did not name the infection.
Irkutsk Region Governor Igor Kobzev announced an emergency meeting of the sanitary and anti-epidemic commission with the participation of Anna Popova, head of Rospotrebnadzor, the federal consumer rights and public health watchdog. He said the reason was a suspected case of a "particularly dangerous infection" in a resident of the region. Kobzev said all identified contacts were under medical observation, showed no signs of illness, and that laboratory test results were negative.
The head of neighboring Buryatia, Alexei Tsydenov, wrote that a woman in the Irkutsk Region "possibly" died of plague. He also said she had not visited Buryatia and that there were no plague foci in the republic. Tsydenov later added the word "possibly" to his post.
According to local media, the deceased was 28-year-old Darya Shipilova, a laboratory assistant at the Irkutsk Plague Research Institute. Lyudi Baikala reported that on September 25 she broke a test tube containing the plague pathogen, soon felt unwell and was hospitalized at the Shelekhovskaya District Hospital, where she died in the early hours of October 2. The outlet reported that about 200 people who had contact with Shipilova were placed under observation.
Epidemiologist Mikhail Favorov, speaking to Ekho, noted that in the event of a plague case the authorities should close the entire hospital, not individual departments.
Amid the reports, residents of Irkutsk and Shelekhov began buying up antibiotics used to treat the infection. According to local residents interviewed by Lyudi Baikala, certain drugs are nearly impossible to find in Irkutsk: some pharmacies are not receiving them because no supplier is available, while others dispense the medicines only by prescription. In several pharmacies the drugs are available only by order for mid-October. In Shelekhov, some pharmacies have already sold out of the relevant antibiotics, with new deliveries expected no earlier than October 5.
Residents of Shelekhov also reported seeing people in protective suits, masks and gloves on the streets. Townspeople said masks were being handed out at kindergartens.
Accounts differ: officially, only the head of Buryatia, Alexei Tsydenov, has confirmed plague as the cause of death, and even then with the caveat "possibly." Irkutsk Region Governor Igor Kobzev and Shelekhovsky district head Maxim Modin refer only to a "particularly dangerous infection" or an "unknown infection," without specifying the diagnosis. The regional branches of Roszdravnadzor and Rospotrebnadzor have not reported a plague infection. Modin spoke of quarantine in individual hospital departments, while epidemiologist Mikhail Favorov insisted that in such a case the entire facility should be closed.