Q&A: Expert discusses Russian plague scare

The reported decease of 28-year-old laboratory technician Darya Shipilova astatine the Irkutsk Research Anti-Plague Institute successful Shelekhov, Siberia, Russia, has raised questions astir a imaginable vulnerability to pneumonic plague and prompted calls for greater transparency. Yersinia pestis is simply a gram-negative, rod-shaped bacterium that causes plague.