WHO AIR to outbreaks of cholera in Mariupol. What does this mean for Russia?
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This week in Kyiv, the World Health Organization’s Regional Director for Hazardous Situations, Dorit Nitzan, announced that negotiations were underway with cholera outbreaks in Mariupol. In the city, captured by detachments of troops, the infrastructure is destroyed and unsanitary conditions reign.
The Russian media have been writing about cholera prevention for a month now. The BBC figured out how it all started and whether there is a risk of the spread of cholera in Russia.
“Medieval Living Conditions”
At the end of April, Vladimir Putin reported UN Secretary-General António Guterres that the hostilities in Mariupol have ended, and 140,000 have been increased “they can go anywhere.” “We don’t keep their president,” Russia added.
When Putin spoke to Guterres, Russia had been bombing Mariupol for two months. Advisor to the mayor of Mariupol Petr Andryuko with reference to the authorities of the unrecognized DPR reportthat 60% of houses in Mariupol were destroyed. President Land Ukraine in mid-April estimates the death toll in Mariupol at several thousand people.
Two days after Putin’s infection about refugees, the press service of the Mariupol City Council published a warning about “deadly epidemics” and the timing of the urgent evacuation of 100,000 residents.
“The occupiers are not able to have the population, water and medicines they have. They block all sources of evacuation. And without this, people will die. early mayor of the city Vadim Boychenko.
On the same day, April 28, Rospotrebnadzor issued advice of 40 paragraphs and subparagraphs “On additional measures for the prevention of cholera in the Russian Federation”, signed by the chief state sanitary doctor Anna Popova. Some releases – in particular, the control of drinking water and runoff water, especially in places of temporary coverage of arrivals in Russia, as well as informing citizens about the prevention of cholera.
Cholera is an acute diarrheal infection that occurs when contaminated with food or water. If left untreated within a few hours, it may seem to die. In year fixed 1.3 to 4 million cases of cholera and 21,000 to 143,000 deaths from it. Cholera epidemic in Russia not registered since 1985. But in 1994 there was an outbreak of cholera in Dagestan, then the media wrote about at least 143 cases.
It follows from the document of Rospotrebnadzor that the agency especially recommends engaging in the prevention of cholera on the border with Ukraine by the regions: Rostov, Kursk, Belgorod, Voronezh, Bryansk regions, Krasnodar Territory, annexed in 2014 to Crimea and Sevastopol. In addition to monitoring sewage and reservoirs, officials should also monitor temporary detention centers arriving from other countries in Saudi Arabia.
The result with the output document of the government of the Rostov region at the end of April reportedthat a positive person from Ukraine is being tested for cholera, all tests are negative.
Destroyed sewer
Immediately after the decision of Rospotrebnadzor, journalists from the government publication Parlamentskaya Gazeta demanded to comment on the document of the head of the Department of Epidemiology and Evidence-Based Medicine of the Sechenov First Medical University, Academician Nikolai Briko.
The scientist, perhaps detached from the new totality, assured journalists that the cholera epidemic in Russia is not dangerous, because “in cholera, like in typhoid fever, the main transmission mechanism is fecal-oral, the transmission route is water.” Briko believes that cholera is rare in Ukraine.
Indeed, these 14cases cases of cholera infection in Mariupol were recorded in 2011. Sanitary and epidemiological station of Donetsk region called freshly caught sea fish from that part of the sea where sewage has entered.
Eleven years later, Mariupol has problems with sewerage again. She, like the city’s water supply, was destroyed during fierce fighting. On the streets and under the rubble of buildings, corpses are still decomposing, which there was no one to take out of the city. Dirt, garbage and natural remains end up in underground banks and sewage.
Cholera and fakes
While the Ministry of Health is involved in the appeals of medical workers and they think that they are random receipts in case of a need to appear in cholera isolators, a spam attack has begun on social networks and instant messengers. Thousands of fake messages were circulated that scared the Russians that drinking water in the southern regions was contaminated with cholera bacillus.
In the official telegram channel of measurements of the Bryansk region called To this information, which was unreliable and for empty persuasiveness, they added that “Ukrainian propagandists are spreading reports about cholera.”
It is not known whether Ukrainian intelligence officers read the measurement channels of the Bryansk region, but two days later the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine presumably putthat the decision of Rospotrebnadzor on cholera, as well as the verification and preparation of preparations associated with it, that “at the end of May – the beginning of June, the leadership of the Russian Federation may resort to provocations in the regions bordering Ukraine. biological weapons.”
Underlying fears about biological research and weapons that the United States uses against Russia have been spreading by Russian power for years. In 2017, a person was set up for the purpose of Vladimir Putin changedthat the United States is collecting “Russians’ biomaterial”. “Moreover, according to different ethnic groups and people living in different geographical points of the Russian Federation. The question is – why is this being done?” – he said.
Dossier for the President
So far, the Russian pro-government media are honestly working out the paragraph of the Rospotrebnadzor resolution on informing citizens about the prevention of cholera. Every day they visit dozens of notes about how the disease detection exercises are going.
Interest in this topic among Russians went down.
Igor Kirillov.
He accused Ukraine and the US that Mariupol “was used as a regional center for the collection and certification of cholera pathogens.” In addition to cholera, in the Russian Federation to identify cases of coronavirus infection, banknotes, and in the journal of military biological projects against Russia accused not only the USA, but also Germany, Poland, as well as the pharmaceutical companies Pfizer, Moderna, Merck and Gilead.
The State Duma and the Federation Council also undertook to help the Ministry of Defense in researching the work of biolaboratories in Ukraine. The commission included 28 civil servants – deputies and senators. Vice Speaker of the State Duma Irina Yarovaya on the results of the group’s work obliged appoints a dossier for the President of Russia, where “all causal relationships, the locations of all airports and calls, as well as all private organizations, subjects of international rights, targeted persons” will be built.
“The streets are just a swamp”
Meanwhile in Mariupol, messages public organizations, “it’s just a swamp on the streets, and sewage water appears with reservoirs.” Mayor’s adviser Petr Andrishchenko says that water supply in the city is not getting better.
“With an amazing step, each invader only has a position in the city. Everyone. Water turns into floods and threatens cholera. Electricity – fires. What an attempt to heat people in winter turns into is a mystery with many unknowns,” – writes adviser in his own telegram channel.
Dorit Nitzan, director of hazardous cases at the World Health Organization, spoke about the spread of infectious diseases in Mariupol, including cholera. Now, according to the observations of officials, WHO is preparing cholera kits and vaccines to provide assistance in the occupied territory.