IRKUTSK: Reports of a plague laboratory worker's death in Siberia have caused waves of speculation outside Russia, but in the city where she worked, many appeared unfazed.

The laboratory worker's death was first reported on Friday. Several Russian media outlets reported she had died from pneumonic plague, a highly contagious form of the deadly disease, and that dozens of people had been quarantined.

But Russian officials downplayed the reports this week, saying that postmortem tests did not detect the disease in her body and that no special measures were in place.

"If it were really serious, I think they would have shut everything down by now," one man, who did not provide his name, told AFP in the remote Siberian city of Irkutsk.