Dangerous enterovirus strain can appear in Russia - sanitarian

Dangerous enterovirus strain can appear in Russia - sanitarian

15.05.2008, 13.11

MOSCOW, May 15 (Itar-Tass) - Type 71 enterovirus can appear on Russia’ s territory, Russian Chief Sanitarian Gennady Onishchenko said.

“The strain of this enterovirus can be imported into our country, and this worries us,” he told reporters on Thursday.

Onishchenko said there are about 100 strains of enterovirus, but only enterovirus-71 harbors such ominous complications as meningitis and palsy.

He stressed that “we are worried by symptom-free carriage of this virus”.

In many cases, a carrier of enterovirus feels well at an initial stage.

Type 71 enterovirus “circulates in Europe and the US”, but “there has been no circulation of this strain of enterovirus on our territory “, he said.

The expert added that other types of enterovirus had been seen in the Russian Far East.

“As a rule, the activation of enterovirus occurs in the Far East occurs in July-September,” Onishchenko said.

He said he had ordered regional health departments to step up preventive work and make examination of people arriving from China for enterovirus infection symptoms.

As for the enterovirus-71 situation in China, Onishenko said that with the enterovirus morbidity rate per 100,000 in densely populated Chinese provinces, the situation did not look disastrous.