Sanitary control is strengthened at Ufa Airport due to deadly coronavirus outbreak

UFA, 23 January 2020. /Bashinform News Agency, Rozalia Valeeva/ translated by Tatiana Aksyutina/.

The sanitary-quarantine control has been strengthened at the Ufa Airport, in connection with the deadly coronavirus outbreak in the territory of the People’s Republic of China.

“All international flights are checked by Rospotrebnadzor specialists. A more thorough inspection is organized on boards arriving from China. Passengers are checked on their well-being after the arrival of the aircraft, and their body temperature is measured with a thermal imager. In the event that there are complaints of malaise, passengers are taken to the first-aid post, where the doctor makes a preliminary diagnosis. In the case of a serious condition, they will be sent to the hospital by ambulance”, explained Anastasia Kuchimova, spokeswoman for the Bashkiria’s Office of Rospotrebnadzor.

Last year, 18 passengers with fever arrived in Ufa: they had SARS and intestinal infection, one passenger suffered from allergies.

Refusals from trips to China due to the outbreak of the deadly virus have not yet been observed.

According to the director of the Kalina-Tour travel agency Tatyana Richter, residents of Bashkiria do not refuse to travel, despite media reports about the infection.

Two flights a week - on Mondays and Thursdays depart from the Ufa airport to Chinese Sanya in Hainan Island according to the schedule on the official website. The administration of the southern island has already announced the registration of four infected, three of whom are residents of Wuhan.

According to TASS, citing the PRC State Committee on Hygiene and Healthcare, the number of people infected with the new-type coronavirus has exceeded 570 in China.

Earlier it became known about 554 cases in 27 regions of the country. Seventeen people died. According to updated data, 95 infected are in critical condition. More than 5.8 thousand people were in close contact with the sick, all of them under quarantine now.

Most of the cases are registered in Hubei province, the administrative center of which is the city of Wuhan, where the spread of the epidemic began. The first case was also identified in the territory of Heilongjiang Province, which borders on Russia.

According to experts, the virus with an incubation period of two weeks is primarily transmitted through airborne droplets, but wild animals became the primary source, judging by an analysis of competent government agencies.

The new type of coronavirus has already been detected in other countries - Thailand (three cases), the Republic of Korea, the USA and Japan (one case each).

Symptoms resembling pneumonia have been identified in Singapore and the Philippines.

According to the Office of Rospotrebnadzor in Bashkiria, annually more than one and a half million citizens of the People’s Republic of China come to the Russian Federation, about the same number of our fellow citizens visit China.

Experts recommend that planning your trips in advance when visiting China and temporarily refrain from trips to Wuhan until the situation stabilizes.

Russian tourists traveling to China are advised to observe safety precautions.