MOSCOW, August 21 (RIA Novosti) - The number of new swine flu cases in Russia has fallen due to a ban imposed in some Russian regions on schoolchildren visiting foreign countries, Russia's chief doctor told RIA Novosti on Friday.
"The ban imposed in August after a group of children from [the Urals city] Yekaterinburg returned from a trip abroad and were confirmed with the virus has brought results," Gennady Onishchenko said.
"The frequency of newly registered cases has decreased," he said.
Russian sanitary officials are continuing to check flights arriving in the country from destinations with confirmed cases of swine flu, or the A/H1N1 virus. Transit flights are also being checked.
According to First Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov, Russia will allocate 4 billion rubles ($125 million) in 2009-2010 to develop a vaccine for swine flu. Production is to start in November, with medical institutions receiving their first batches of the vaccine around the same time.
In August, Onishchenko warned Russian football fans not to travel to the U.K. for Russia's 2010 World Cup qualifier against Wales over swine flu fears. A spokesman for the Welsh FA accused him of being "unnecessarily alarmist."
Neighboring Belarus has already confirmed four cases of swine flu. Three of them are children who returned from a trip to the U.K.
WHO has officially confirmed a total of 2,349 deaths worldwide from the A/H1N1 virus.
