MOSCOW, October 23 (RIA Novosti) - The official number of swine flu cases in Russia has reached 1,040, the country's top sanitary official said on Friday.

Gennady Onishchenko said 580 infections were acquired abroad, which meant that circulation of the virus in Russia had begun.

He added that more than half of the cases were children aged 7-14. "This was what we expected, because children have gone back to school," he added.

No deaths from swine flu have been registered in Russia.

As of Friday, 409,134 cases of swine flu have been confirmed throughout the world and over 4,700 people have died from the virus, Onyshchenko said adding that the data was not complete as some countries had stopped keeping records.