ITAR-TASS about acute intestinal infection outbreak

ITAR-TASS: "Intestinal infection outbreak hits Russia southern region 04.10.2007, 11.17 LERMONTOV (Stavropol region) , October 4 (Itar-Tass) - The number of children who have contracted acute intestinal infection has increased to 82 in the city of Lermontov in Russia’s southern Stavropol Terrritory.

• Itar-Tass is reporting about it 7.10.2007 as a TOP NEWS.

KISLOVODSK, the Stavropol region, October 7 (Itar-Tass) - The number of acute intestinal infection cases in the southern Russian city of Kislovodsk has reached 496. Three hundred fourteen people, including 294 children, have been hospitalized, a source at the regional branch of the Authority for the Control over the Quality of Food Products (Rospotrebnadzor) told Itar-Tass on Saturday.

An official of the local medical centre told ITAR-TASS on Thursday that 41 children had been hospitalised, and a number of them had been sent to Pyatigorsk. The infection outbreak was registered in a kindergarten on Wednesday. Next morning children complained of headachche and stomach ache, and 13 others made complaints next,” the kindergarten’s chief Lyudmila Chertan said. The preliminary diagnosis is acute intestinal infection. “Tests of the affected and contacts have been made, and their results will allow making a final diagnosis,” she said.

Specialists are ascertaining whether local or imported food was a cause of the disease. The Lermontov city administration has set up a crisis centre. Specialists of the federal oversight service Rosptrebnadzor are working at the site.

The city prosecutor general’s office has begun a probe. This is the fourth intestinal infection outbreak in the Stavropol Territory over the recent months, in which over 500 people have been affected. A territorial emergency situations commission meets in Lermontov on Thursday."