Quarantine introduced in all Minsk schools

• 2.11.2009, 12:59

According to an official version, schools of the capital of Belarus have been quarantined due to the increased number of URI cases.

“Holidays in education establishment of Minsk have been prolonged for a week,” the education committee says.

As www.charter97.org website learnt from parents of schoolchildren, school teachers ring and say schools will be closed for at least a week.

Chief doctor of Minsk Fyodar Hermanovich told BelTA an official decision to close schools for quarantine of Minsk hadn’t been taken yet.

“We consider a question on prolonging holidays till November 6 to reduce a risk of local epidemic complications in schools and restrict involvement of children and teachers in the epidemic process,” he said and noted a week’s prolongation of the holidays would allow preventing the risk of URTI and flu cases among schoolchildren and teachers.

A final decision on this issue will be made in the nearest time, the chief doctor of Minsk says.

As www.charter97.org has earlier reported, information about fatal cases of swine flu in Minsk hospitals appeared on the Internet.

The Ministry of Health denies this information and say laboratory tests have confirmed 38 cases of swine influenza in Belarus, but no lethal outcomes have been recorded. First deputy minister Robert Chasnoits says “four people have died from acute pneumonia for the last two weeks”.

Alyaksandr Pyatkevich, acting director of the Republican Scientific Practical Center on epidemiology and microbiology, said Russia hadn’t delivered the promised vaccine against A(H1N1) virus to Belarus.

“Russia promised to give Belarus the vaccine against swine flu, but we haven’t received it yet,” the specialist said.

Doctors from Smolensk (Russia) say some people, who recently visited Belarus, have swine flu virus.

The swine flu epidemic was announced in neighbouring Ukraine yesterday – some regions are under quarantine.