Special drinking regime

The number of hepatitis patients has doubled in Nizhny Novgorod

Despite the fact that doctors tend to consider the water supply to be the source of the hepatitis outbreak in Nizhny Novgorod, the fight against this disease is already underway on the city streets. Yesterday, the chief state sanitary doctor of the Nizhny Novgorod region, Evgeny Petrov, demanded that the administration introduce a special trade regime in the regional center. In Nizhny Novgorod, “until further notice,” street trading is actually prohibited: the sale of vegetables and fruits, baked goods, loose ice cream, shawarma and drinks in street tents, as well as the production of grilled chicken in tonars and kiosks that are not connected to central water supply and sewerage networks. Along with sellers, homeless people and migrant workers were also included among the potential distributors of jaundice. It was recommended to the head of the Central Internal Affairs Directorate for the Nizhny Novgorod Region to take control of the alleged locations of persons without a fixed abode and strengthen supervision over the places of residence and work of persons arriving from neighboring countries.

The authorities were forced to take these measures by the worsening epidemiological situation. The number of Nizhny Novgorod residents admitted to the hospital with a diagnosis of hepatitis A has doubled over the past five days and already totals 710 people, including 137 children. As Vladimir Lazarev, director of the city health department, reported yesterday at a daily operational meeting, all infectious diseases hospitals are full, and 200 additional beds have been prepared in non-core hospitals. Moreover, local epidemiologists, apparently, do not expect the outbreak of the disease to die out in the coming days. Yesterday, Evgeniy Petrov recommended that Mr. Lazarev additionally prepare another 2.5 thousand reserve beds for patients with hepatitis in therapeutic departments in case the reserve of infectious diseases departments, which amounts to 830 beds, is exhausted.

Yesterday at a press conference in Nizhny Novgorod, Mr. Petrov again confirmed the version about the “water route” of the spread of the epidemic. “The cause of the hepatitis A outbreak was local water contamination, but the exact time and place of contamination has not yet been established. Work in this direction continues,” he said. At the same time, the Nizhny Novgorod sanitary doctor cited the geography of the outbreak and the clinical picture of the disease as arguments. “With food contamination, it is more severe,” he explained. Almost all patients, he said, had mild to moderate severity of the disease. The largest number of cases of hepatitis are in the Sormovsky and Moskovsky districts of Nizhny Novgorod - with food contamination, the outbreak would not be local.

However, numerous tests of the water (and over the past two days, Rospotrebnadzor specialists took 40 samples only at the water intake of the Sormovsky district) did not find the virus in it. Doctors received diagrams of water supply and sewer networks, as well as hot water supply, from the city water utility and are starting to check all systems. Mr. Petrov believes that “there was clearly some kind of emergency local situation somewhere out there.” “Our task is to get to the bottom of the truth,” says the chief medical officer.

In parallel with the investigation of the causes of the disease, doctors are carrying out preventive work. In Nizhny Novgorod, children and workers of the city water utility, trade and public catering services are being urgently vaccinated against hepatitis. More than 10 thousand people have already been vaccinated. According to Vice-Mayor of Nizhny Novgorod Sergei Gladyshev, it is planned to purchase another 12.5 thousand doses of the vaccine in the coming days. 2.5 million rubles were transferred from the city budget for these purposes, and another 3.5 million rubles. allocated from the reserve fund by Governor Valery Shantsev.

Despite the fact that tests for the virus turned out to be negative, the water supply networks will carry out the second hyperchlorination of drinking water with an increase in the dose of chlorine to 3 ml per 1 liter of water. In addition, a “special drinking regime” has been introduced in children’s educational institutions in Nizhny Novgorod. It suggests that children should only be provided with boiled or bottled water. However, representatives of the local education department are confident that the pathogen will not enter the institutions under their jurisdiction. According to the director of the city department of education, Irina Tarasova, “school is now the safest place for a child, since on the eve of the school year all educational institutions were thoroughly checked by the SES.”

Irina BELASHEVA