Russia’s health watchdog on Wednesday said there was no epidemic risk to people in the eastern Siberian Irkutsk region following the death of a worker at a plague research institute, while the Kremlin said Moscow had properly informed the World Health Organization (WHO) about the case.According to news agency Reuters, regulator Rospotrebnadzor said medical monitoring of people who had contact with the deceased worker, along with laboratory tests, had found no signs of infection or dangerous pathogens.“Preventive and anti-epidemic measures have been organised in full, and there are no epidemic risks for the population of Irkutsk or Irkutsk region,” it said in a statement.The watchdog also said it had shared information about the situation with the WHO. Authorities had quarantined dozens of people after the laboratory worker fell ill and died in undisclosed circumstances.Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia had informed the WHO about the death last week in line with established procedures, and accused the media of spreading false information.Peskov was responding to an ABC News report that the United States had lodged a formal diplomatic complaint over Russia’s handling of the case and had urged Moscow to provide greater transparency.“Much of the reporting surrounding the incident was false,” Peskov said, urging people to rely on information released by Rospotrebnadzor.On Tuesday, the watchdog said no cases of plague had been detected among people who had come into contact with the deceased.WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Wednesday that Russian authorities had reported no case of plague in the region. WHO had earlier described the possible risk outside Russia as “very low”, while Russian authorities cited a “typical” acute respiratory viral infection.The case has revived memories of the COVID-19 pandemic and earlier disputes over the origins of the virus. Pneumonic plague affects the lungs and can spread between people through respiratory particles, while bubonic plague is more commonly transmitted through infected flea bites.Earlier, US secretary of state Marco Rubio urged Moscow to share more information.“Maybe there’s nothing there. Maybe it’s bigger than we thought. We don’t know,” Rubio said in Iceland, on Tuesday.“We encourage Russia to be more transparent and share more information with the world,” he added, saying the information available so far had been “quite limited”.