Saratov region. More than a thousand vials of vaccine for children and adults were discovered on the outskirts of a military town.

The prosecutor's office of the Tatishchevo district began an investigation into the discovery of ampoules with the vaccine thrown into the forest. Unknown people tried to destroy preparations intended for vaccination of children and adults against measles, tetanus, hepatitis, BCG and influenza.

According to Roman Yakovenko, deputy prosecutor of the Tatishevsky district, the ampoules were found in the forest on the outskirts of the ZATO Svetly. The discovery was reported to the prosecutor's office by vacationers who came to the forest for a barbecue. 1110 ampoules lay in the fire, according to the assumption of the supervisory authority, someone tried to burn them.

Svetly is a closed military camp, you can get into the territory (including the forest where the drugs were found) only with passes. “Not everyone will be allowed through the checkpoint, it is unlikely that these ampoules were brought here from Tatishchevo or Saratov, and there is enough land there. Svetly's hospital is out of the question, because only adult military personnel are served there, and part of the discovered vaccine was intended for children. Suspicion falls on Svetly's medical unit, where vaccinations are done. But it will be possible to speak about this with confidence only after the regional Ministry of Health compares the series of vaccines found with those that were supplied to the medical unit, ”says Roman Yakovenko.

According to the prosecutor's office, the vaccination logs of the medical unit indicate that the vaccination plan in the town has been 100 percent completed. But in a random survey of patients, fifteen people said that, in fact, they had not been vaccinated at all. It also turned out that eight "vaccinated" in reality had died long ago. “Back in 2005, a terrible incident happened in our town - my grandmother was killed. According to the documents of the medical unit, this grandmother was vaccinated against hepatitis in 2012, and against the flu in 2013,” says the deputy prosecutor.

It is noteworthy that the vaccines found in the forest have a shelf life of up to 2015-2016, that is, with proper storage, they could be useful to many people.

According to the rules, medical institutions must transfer such substances for disposal to a special company that has a license. On paper, the medical unit has an agreement with such a company.

Now the district prosecutor's office plans to transfer the ampoules for research to the Microbe Institute in Saratov: “We want to find out if they posed a danger to the health of people walking in the forest, because some vaccines contain “live” pathogens.”

It is noteworthy that the drugs were thrown into the forest, although medical institutions in the region constantly complain about the lack of funding. For example, for the purchase of medicines for beneficiaries living in Saratov, the regional Ministry of Health allocated only 30 percent of the required amount this year.

It should be noted that this year Rospotrebnadzor warned Saratov residents about the increasing cases of measles (a measles vaccine was also found near Svetly): 32 cases have been registered since the beginning of the year, which is eight times more than in the whole of 2012. The incidence of hepatitis increased by 3.1 times, 62 people fell ill. Last year, an outbreak of hepatitis occurred in Balakovo (more than 100 people), the city's children's polyclinic urgently purchased a vaccine for 100,000 rubles.