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Russia to spend $10.7 mln to fight swine flu

 / Go to the mediabank Russia to spend $10.7 mln to fight swine flu
 Russia to spend $10.7 mln to fight swine flu  - Sputnik International
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Russia will allocate 343 million rubles ($10.7 million) in 2009 to combat the spread of the A/H1N1 virus, including 45 million rubles ($1.4 million) to develop a vaccine, the health ministry said on Thursday.

MOSCOW, August 13 (RIA Novosti) - Russia will allocate 343 million rubles ($10.7 million) in 2009 to combat the spread of the A/H1N1 virus, including 45 million rubles ($1.4 million) to develop a vaccine, the health ministry said on Thursday.

Over 298 million rubles ($9.3 million) will go towards diagnosing and treating swine flu cases, and on monitoring the disease's spread across Russia.

Russia has been largely unaffected by the global pandemic, but the latest figures, released by consumer watchdog Rospotrebnadzor on Thursday, showed an almost threefold jump in 10 days.

"There are 142 officially confirmed À/Í1N1 human cases in Russia," said Gennady Onishchenko, Russia's chief sanitary official.

On August 3, there were just 55 confirmed cases nationwide. The vast majority of infections reported in Russia were in people returning home after foreign trips.

The World Health Organization's latest reports said there have been 219,681 cases and 1,882 deaths worldwide. There have been no fatal cases reported in Russia.

Onishchenko said the number of infections was quite low for a country as large as Russia, and he expected schools to open as usual when the academic year begins on September 1.

"I believe the situation will not change between August 13 and September 1," he said, adding that schools could be closed for certain age groups, as has happened during previous influenza epidemics.

The funds to fight the virus are to be distributed from the Russian budget to scientific, sanitary, health, medical and agricultural organizations, as well as to the Defense Ministry.

Russia was quick to start work on a vaccine, and the director of the Russian Academy of Sciences' Influenza Institute, Oleg Kiselyov, said in late July that the first batch would be ready by October, adding that the vaccine would be given to volunteers from August 20.

Medical and emergency service staff, and law-enforcement and public transport personnel in cities with more than 500.000 inhabitants, will be vaccinated first, the health ministry said, although other groups of workers will also be given priority.

 

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