No Cases of Atypical Pneumonia Registered in Russia - 9 April, 2003

No cases of atypical pneumonia or something that looked like it were registered in Russia so far, told RIA Novosti a source in the press service of the country's State Sanitary and Epidemiological Inspection /SSEI/, which set up a special round-the-clock service to collect information about cases of illness looking like atypical pneumonia.

Regional healthcare agencies and medical establishments were ordered to report all suspicious cases to Moscow and either confirm or disprove the diagnosis after clinical research, said the source.

As part of the same effort, all airplanes and passenger trains arriving in Russia must pass sanitary control in accordance with World Health Organisation recommendations and the Plan of Organisational, Prophylactic and Anti-epidemic Measures to prevent atypical pneumonia from spreading across the Russian territory, a document approved by the SSEI.

As for the two Russian patients who were hospitalised last Friday in Artyom, a town close to Vladivostok and Novosibirsk, on suspicion of being sick with atypical pneumonia, one turned out to be suffering from a neglected form of simple pneumonia, while the other was diagnosed with bronchitis. The condition of both patients is "satisfactory," said the source.