Cold and flu epidemic in Russia spreading two-way – academician

The cold and flu epidemic is spreading two-way in Russia, head of the World Health Organization’s National Flu Center and member of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences Oleg Kiselyov told Itar-Tass on Tuesday.

“The western vector begins from Kaliningrad; this is the type A flu. The eastern vector of the type A and B flu comes from the Far East and Siberia. The type B virus will make this epidemic slow and stretched out till summer,” the academician said. The majority of flu patients will be babies and schoolchildren.

“The growing flu rate of babies and schoolchildren is being reported from the majority of Russian cities, including St. Petersburg, Arkhangelsk, Pskov, Smolensk and Astrakhan,” he said.

The flu epidemic threshold has been passed in Voronezh, Volgograd, Nizhny Novgorod, Saratov, Rostov-on-Don, Vladikavkaz and Krasnodar in the west and in Khabarovsk, Perm, Irkutsk, Chelyabinsk, Omsk, Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk, Barnaul, Kemerovo, Krasnoyarsk, Magadan, Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk and Chita in the east.

Meanwhile, a high cold and flu rate in Europe has been reported only from Bulgaria. The sickness rate is medium in eighteen European countries and low in ten, he said.