Kathmandu, Oct. 6 -- year-old lab technician died in Russia's Irkutsk region in eastern Siberia after developing severe pneumonia, amid reports that she may have been exposed to plague. Nearly 200 people who had contact with her were subsequently placed under medical observation or isolation.

The woman was an employee at the anti-plague research institute in Irkutsk, and all those employees placed under medical observation were serving at the same institute. Russia's public health watchdog Rospotrebnadzor, said on Sunday that the deceased had been infected with "pneumonia of unknown aetiology" and that the sanitary and epidemiological situation in the Irkutsk region remains stable. It is reported that none of the contacts has shown any c...