This vaccine does not contain plague bacterium and so cannot cause plague. But it does include added genes that make proteins from the plague bacterium **Yersinia pestis**. Currently in Russia: The Suspected Case The scare centers on Darya Shipilova, a 28-year-old laboratory technician at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute of Siberia and the Far East, who died on October 2, 2026 after being hospitalized with severe pneumonia symptoms. Unofficial Russian media reports claim she broke a test tube containing **Yersinia pestis** (the plague bacterium) on September 25, days before falling ill.