Siberia: Suspected meningitis outbreak claims another child?s life

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Source: http://www.russiatoday.ru/news/news/25690

June 4, 2008, 0:31
Suspected meningitis outbreak claims another child?s life
A second child has died in southern Siberia after a suspected outbreak of meningitis. Both youngsters were pupils at the same nursery in the town of Abakan.

23 children from the same nursery group were taken to hospital with symptoms of food poisoning. After several days a two-year-old girl died, prompting sanitary inspectors and investigators to rush to the kindergarten. Now a second child has died after spending several days in a coma.

The nursery group the children had attended has been put under quarantine, with local officials promising to examine all the children in the kindergarten.

But parents are demanding answers. They want to know why the nursery was not put under quarantine when the children were first rushed to hospital. There are also concerns that the other nursery groups remain open despite the fact 20 youngsters are still in hospital.

A criminal case has been opened and an investigation is underway. The director of the kindergarten has been charged with negligence leading to a person's death.

Tatiana Bogomolova from the local education department said: ?The parents are free to keep their children at home after they're examined until we know the results. All the quarantine measures ordered by the Sanitary Inspectors have been taken. Basically, the situation in our kindergarten is normal.?

Not all children in hospital have been given an exact diagnosis. Although many are said to have a respiratory infection, doctors say they suspect the deaths were caused by meningitis.

 

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Re: Siberia: Suspected meningitis outbreak claims another child?s life

Source:
http://www.primicias.com.do/articulo,12429,html

Google translation ftom Spanish:
Russian Prosecutor investigates death of children by enterovirus


Wednesday June 4, 2008, updated 14 hours ago, 56 minutes

Moscow, June 4 (PL) The Office of the Russian republic of Khakassia today investigates the deaths of two children appear to be caused by an outbreak of enterovirus infection in suspense that keeps a team of specialists.

Following the death yesterday of a minor three years, the second in

Within days, the committee investigations of the regional Prosecutor

decided to prosecute a process for the crime of neglect against Yulia Shmidt,

director of a children's circle in the town of Abakan.

The agency contends that there was negligence by the authorities

the educational center since they were first declared

suspected case.

Following a girl died the first two years, but in general

Such diseases were unknown in the republic of Khakassia,

according to health authorities.

Judicial sources told the press today that the investigation is

carried out under strict control to the Attorney territorial

defining responsibilities of medical personnel and administrative matters.

Between 1 and June 3 were admitted to hospital in the republic some 23

Infants, children from the circle elochka, declared

quarantine.

So far indications enteroviruses were detected in five children and

Specialists performed additional tests to identify the

variant of the virus, explained the assistant address control

Epidemiological Khakassia, Liudmila Lebedeva.

He added that laboratory tests carried out to the child died

yesterday yielded a string of a viral RNA aggressive

meningo-encephalitis.

Enteroviruses are associated with various diseases of the nervous system

central and paralytic polio, aseptic meningitis syndrome

febrile, herpangina and others.

 

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Re: Siberia: Suspected meningitis outbreak claims another child?s life

Source: http://www.kommersant.com/p-12628/Enterovirus_Khakass/

June 05, 2008

Moscow Joined the Enterovirus Battle
Test samples taken from Khakass children killed by the enterovirus infection have been forwarded to the leading laboratories of Russia. Experts in Khabarovsk, Novosibirsk and Moscow will spare no efforts to determine the infectious agent, said Tatiana Zaitseva, who is the deputy chief of Rosprirodnadzor department for Khabarovsk region.
The samples will reach laboratories in the following two days, Zaitseva specified. Meanwhile in Khabarovsk, they endeavor to prevent the contagion, toughening control over the food supplied from China, where the outbreak of enterovirus disease has been recently reported.

The Krasnoyarsk Department of Rosprirodnadzor has recommended to locals to avoid frequent contacts with the people from Khakassia during summer vocation.

Sick children from Elochka kindergarten and two adults are currently in the infectious hospital of Abakan. Five children have enterovirus, two are dead already.

Seven children have been admitted this morning; their diagnosis is the acute respiratory viral infection. Khakass Health Minister Galina Artemenko told Interfax that the authorities decided to check Elochka after the death of two children. ?210 children were examined, 37 of them had acute respiratory disease and it was decided to hospitalize seven children? We had 24 children in the hospital, now seven more have been hospitalized. It has never been the question of enterovirus in the latest cases,? Artemenko specified.
www.kommersant.com

See Also
Source: http://www.kommersant.com/p899981/r_500/public_health/

Khakassian Children Have Chinese Bug?
The Prosecutor General?s investigative committee for Khakassia stated that one of the possible causes of the hospitalization of more than 20 children, two of whom have died, from Elochka kindergarten in Abakan is an enterovirus that originated in China, not meningococcal infection as stated earlier. Enteroviruses spread from the intestinal tract to the nervous system and are most frequently found in children. There are about 100 varieties of the virus.
?It is possible that the enterovirus was introduced with Chinese vegetables,? stated Svetlana Pavina, senior aide of the investigative group. ?That theory is being developed and it is too early to draw any conclusions.? Enterovirus 71 has caused mass infections in China and killed a several dozen people there. There are 26 children hospitalized at the moment. A two-year-old girl died from the infection on June 1 and a three-year-old boy died on June 3.

Students and staff at Elochka are still under the observation of epidemiologists, since enteroviruses have a 5-10 day incubation period. Symptoms include malaise, fever, headache, nausea, abdominal pain, aversion to bright light and sometimes vomiting. The virus is spread in food and water, through contact with an enterovirus patient and through sharing household goods. The virus can also be airborne.
www.kommersant.com

 

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Re: Siberia: Suspected meningitis outbreak claims another child?s life

Source:
http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=12749889&PageNum=0

Condition of children in Abakan hospitals does not raise concerns
05.06.2008, 15.40

MOSCOW, June 5 (Itar-Tass) - Russia's chief sanitary officer Gennady Onishchenko said that the condition of children in Abakan's hospitals does not raise concerns. "As of now, 31 children are in infection wards. They show symptoms of acute respiratory viral infection, and acute intestinal infection," Onishchenko told reporters on Thursday.

"Just seven patients are running a slightly increased temperature," he said adding that had it not been for suspicion of hard infection, the higher temperature would have raised no concerns."

A total of 168 children visited the Yelochka kindergarten. They all were checked at home by doctors.

"The kindergarten is idling at present. The remaining 32 pre-school education facilities in Abakan are closely monitoring the children's health," Onishchenko underlined.

Twenty-two recreational centers under the auspices of local schools began to function in Abakan. They accommodate more than 4,000 children, who are under medical supervision as well, the chief sanitary officer said.

Onishchenko noted that enterovirus was not an unknown etiological agent for Russia.

"Each year, in July, August, and September, we have increased rate of enterovirus infection in the Khabarovsk territory, the Khanty-Mansi and Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Areas and the Amur region," he said.

"If one considers the enterovirus version with respect to the disease in Khakasia, it's begun too early; and two fatalities against a relatively calm background would indicate a bacterial version," the official went on to say.

According to Onishchenko, all the anti-epidemiological measures aimed at containing the infection are being carried out, not only in Abakan, but also in the regions neighboring China - the Khabarovsk territory, and the Amur and Chita regions. New arrivals from China showing symptoms of the infection are subject to obligatory checks.

In his view, the illness that sickened children in Khakasia is not linked with China's enterovirus epidemic.

"We do not see any link to China. We cannot say if it's meningokok or enterorvirus," he said.

"A group of doctors from Moscow will come to Abakan today. They are experienced epidemiologists and clinicists coming to look into the situation. The enterovirus variant is still questioned. Khakasia does not border on Chinese provinces, and the Chinese representatives who worked in Khakasia, do not cause doctors' suspicions," Onishchenko said.

At present, tissue samples from sickened and dead people have been taken to laboratories of Novosibirsk and Obolensk, and the Moscow institutes of epidemiology, poliomyelitis and viral encephalitis named after Chumakov.

The results are due to be announced later.

On Wednesday, another eight children from the Yelochka kindergarten were hospitalized to an infection ward in Khakasia, bringing the number of sickened people to 32.

A doctor, speaking to Itar-Tass, said five of them were suspected enterovirus carriers.

"They have been accommodated in isolated rooms, separately from their coevals," the doctor said.

"The other children's diagnosis remains the same - acute respiratory viral infection, acute intestinal infection, and nasopharyngitis. Two children died - Vika Plotnikova and Volodya Panov, both aged three," he said.

Town and regional health care officials have offered assurances that there is no danger; that the nidus of the disease has been contained and that all the necessary safety measures have been taken.

Specialists from the Rosprirodnadzor Federal Service for Supervision of Nature Resources are now checking the town water supply system and all the water basins. They are also inspecting the quality of potable water.

 

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Re: Siberia: Suspected meningitis outbreak claims another child?s life

Source: http://www.russiatoday.ru/news/news/25930
June 7, 2008, 23:37
Doctors say Siberian virus deaths not linked

Doctors believe that the deaths of two children killed by a mystery virus in Siberia are not linked. The infants, who both died in the last fortnight, were friends from the same nursery in Abakan in the Republic of Khakassia.

It was previously feared that the children had become infected with an aggressive enterovirus, which can lead to meningitis. But doctors now say that they believe the cause of death was different in both cases.

Two year old Victoria Plotnikova died from suspected meningitis at the beginning of the month.

Five days earlier, Victoria's best friend, Vladimir Panov, died after being given a similar diagnosis.

39 children from the same nursery were also taken to hospital with infections. Nine of them have now been discharged.

The full results of their analysis will not be known for two more weeks but doctors say their condition is satisfactory. The nursery has been quarantined until June 19.

Charges of negligence could be brought against the nursery?s director. Svetlana Pavina from the investigation committee said: ?Criminal charges are being considered against the nursery staff and the doctors in the hospital, because no action was taken to prevent the deaths and to stop the infection.?

Another investigator, Galina Martynova, said: ?These two are absolutely independent cases as for the others, none of them is infected and they'll be dismissed from the hospital and be sent back home shortly.?

However, doctors warn that the enterovirus, the most common cause of meningitis and which spreads through close contact, may flare up again - just like it did two years ago. Back then a hundred people picked up a serious infection by a lake.

 

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Re: Siberia: Suspected meningitis outbreak claims another child?s life

Source: http://mnweekly.ru/news/20080610/55333119.html

10/06/2008 |
Meningitis Outbreak Kills Two in Siberia

Medical officials have called an enterovirus scare in south Siberia's Hakasiya region a false alarm after tests came in showing evidence that the deaths of a boy and a girl from the Yelochka kindergarten in the town of Abakan were from unrelated causes. Meanwhile, 39 children from the same facility remain hospitalized with a virus-like respiratory illness and intestinal infection.

"According to preliminary results from lab tests, two cases of child deaths in the Yelochka kindergarten are unrelated," RIA Novosti quoted a representative of the regional Rospotrebnadzor - the state agency that oversees control of consumer and health affairs - as saying.

Doctors had feared that the deaths of a two year old girl and a three year old boy were caused by enterovirus-71, a virulent strain of the pathogen which has already infected nearly 30,000 people in China, causing 30 deaths among children. But now epidemologists are assuring the population that the strain has not entered Russia.

Nevertheless, prosecutors have launched a criminal investigation against kindergarten headmistress Yulia Shmidt, who could face negligence charges on allegations that she failed to report the meningitis-like symptoms of the two children to other parents and health officials.

According to parents quoted in the Izvestia daily, by the time she warned them to check their children, Volodya was already in a coma.

Volodya Panov, 3, came down with a flu-like illness on May 23, and died June 3, after falling into a coma.

His friend from the kindergarten, two-year-old Vika Plotnikova fell ill May 31 with similar symptoms and died the next day.

It was initially suspected that the illness was caused by an enterovirus, which often results in meningitis. Fearing the worst, medical officials began checking for similar infections across the entire region.

Russia's Chief Sanitary Doctor Gennady Onishchenko personally visited the rest of the hospitalized children along with a whole brigade of clinical specialists who he said worked with enterovirus cases.

Initially he said that they were not sure whether the deaths were caused by meningitis or en*terovirus, but warned that even if an enterovirus was detected as the cause, it could not be the same strain as the one in China, NTV reported late last week.

By Saturday, however, the initial diagnosis was confirmed, he told RIA Novosti. Volodya had died from bacterial meningo-encephalitis, while Vika died from toxic shock caused by fast-progressing bacterial meningitis.

Onishchenko called their deaths a "tragic coincidence," Komsomolskaya Pravda quoted him as saying.

But the illnesses of the 39 other children have a simple explanation: "They all went to kindergarten in February, and had stayed home their entire lives before that," the paper quoted a clinical doctor who visited the children in Abakan as saying. "They came face to face with the outside world and started getting sick. It is a normal occurrence among children who enter kindergarten."

Last summer, about 100 people were infected with a strain of enterovirus they picked after swimming in a Khakasia lake.

By Anna Arutunyan