A flu epidemic is sweeping through Russia, with hundreds of kindergartens and schools quarantined, but Moscow's top health official sought to allay public concerns over the outbreak.
Leonid Pechatnikov, the head of Moscow's healthcare department, told journalists Friday that over 90,000 people got infected with flu in the city over the past week, but said the Russian capital is ready for the epidemic and has enough hospital beds and drugs to combat the virus.
Meanwhile, the A/H1N1 strain, also known as "swine flu," is also taking its toll, with 93 people having been infected with it in Moscow. The strain has also reportedly killed a few people across Russia.
"There's no panic here. No deaths have been registered [in Moscow]," Pechatnikov said, adding that the flu epidemic could decline in February.
Some experts say that the widely publicized fears of the alleged swine flu, bird flu and SARS outbreaks of past years were the result of a conspiracy from which pharmaceutical companies benefited a lot. There are no reliable data that more people died from these diseases than from ordinary flu or respiratory illnesses.
MOSCOW, January 29 (RIA Novosti)
