DONALD Trump offered to help Vladimir Putin contain a suspected plague outbreak in Russia.
Hundreds of people are under medical observation and hospitals have been shut down for weeks following the mysterious death of a scientist in Siberia.
Fears began to spread when Daria Shipilova, 28, fell ill after accidentally breaking a test tube containing plague bacteria at a research institute, reports say.
She was left in hospital before dying from “pneumonia of unknown aetiology”, Russian health officials said.
Some 60 colleagues of Shipilova have been quarantined amid spiralling fears she died from the pneumonic plague.
Offering a lifeline to the beleaguered dictator, Trump said on Monday the US would “help” Russia deal with the suspected crisis.
He said: “Well, we’re looking at it very strongly. We just heard about it, and they call it pneumonia.
“And pneumonia, you know, years ago you could treat pneumonia easier.
“The microbes and the germs have gotten stronger disproportionately, but we’ll help them.”
Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Washington is “watching and monitoring it closely”.
He said: “There’s very limited travel between the US and Russia, obviously.
“But like anything else, something like that gets out and could quickly spread. So we’re watching and monitoring it closely.”
Russian scientist Shipilova was working at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Institute in Siberia when she was reported to have been exposed to the pneumonic plague virus.
She became unwell on a field expedition with colleagues in Buryatia, on Russia’s eastern border with Mongolia, and died two days after being put on a hospital ventilator on September 29.
Her sudden death sparked the immediate quarantine of nearly 200 people who had been in contact with her at the lab in Shelekhov.
The regional Irkutsk branch of the Moscow State Technical University of Civil Aviation cancelled classes after staff were told of a “case of pneumonic plague in Shelekhov”.
Three-week quarantine restrictions have also been ordered at Irkutsk City Clinical Hospitals Nos. 1, 3 and 10 and Ivano-Matreninskaya Children’s Hospital, as well as a maternity unit.
Relatives have been barred from wards amid reports anxious medical staff have been “talking about plague” even though the diagnosis is not on official documents.
The Irkutsk Aluminium Smelter works in Shelekhov, employing more than 2,000 people, also ordered workers to wear masks amid fears the air-borne plague bug could spread.
Concerns of a potentially catastrophic cover-up were also mounting after pro-Putin officials changed Shipilova’s cause of death.
State health watchdog Rospotrebnadzor now insists her diagnosis was “pneumonia of unknown aetiology” rather than the plague lung bug.
More confusion spread as Russian officials began parroting a new version of events over the weekend.
Buryatia governor Alexey Tsydenov initially said a woman in the neighbouring Irkutsk region had “died of the plague”.
But the wording of his statement has now changed to say she “possibly” died from the disease.
Officials insisted the risk of spread was under control — but failed to explain why such serious quarantine crackdowns were in place.
Pneumonic plague causes a severe lung infection.
Symptoms, which include fever, shortness of breath and coughing up blood, appear between three and seven days after contact.
It kills unless treated but fatalities drop to around 17 per cent if antibiotics are administered within the first 24 hours of infection.
The World Health Organisation says untreated pneumonic plague can be fatal within 18 to 24 hours of symptoms appearing — and without early treatment is almost always fatal.
It is the only form of plague which spreads directly between people, through breath droplets.
Early symptoms can be mistaken for flu — and undiagnosed victims can deteriorate quickly.
Bubonic Plague, spread by flea bites, and blood virus Septicemic Plague also fuelled the horrific pandemic which killed nearly two thirds of Europe’s population in the mid-14th Century.