India, Oct. 3 -- A woman has died of plague in Russia's remote Irkutsk region in Siberia, Alexei Tsydenov, governor of the neighbouring region of Buryatia, said in a social media post on Friday.

That is close to the entirety of what is known.

Tsydenov governs an adjoining region and not the one with jurisdiction over the case. Russia's health ministry had not issued any statement, AFP reported, adding that it was unable to verify what else has been published about the death.

But Russian media outlets have named the woman as a 28-year-old laboratory technician, reported that she worked at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Institute, and said she may have contracted pneumonic plague after a test tube broke. Around 200 of her contacts have been pla...