Russia – Kremlin: No date set yet for Putin-Trump phone call

MOSCOW, Oct 8 /ATSH-DPA/ – Moscow and Washington have not yet agreed on a date for the phone conversation between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump, regarding suspicions in the pneumonic plague case, following the death of a scientist in Siberia, the Kremlin announced today.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said today that no agreement has yet been reached on holding the call and that it is not known when it will take place.

Earlier, Trump stated that the call was planned and would take place very soon.

According to the Kremlin, the two presidents have held five phone conversations since the beginning of this year, while the last call took place on September 8.

The Kremlin said a new phone call could be organized quickly, if one of them were to formally propose it.

The 28-year-old scientist, who worked at a plague research institute, died on Friday at a hospital in the Siberian city of Shelekhov, near Irkutsk.

It is still not known what caused her illness, while Russian authorities have denied reports that she had fallen ill after an incident in the laboratory.

Russian public health authorities have stated only that her death was not caused by the plague bacterium and have determined the cause of death as “pneumonia of unknown origin”, a lung infection whose exact cause has not been established.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO) has asked Russia for information regarding another possible pneumonia death in Irkutsk.

If it were confirmed that the disease was pneumonic plague, it would be a severe form of plague, caused by the bacterium “Yersinia pestis”.

This disease can develop when the infection spreads to the lungs and can be treated with antibiotics, if detected and treated in the early stages.