Moscow Threatened by Malaria...05/24/00
BBC

Moscow public health and epidemic monitoring authority is afraid of a mass outbreak of malaria. As many as 14 people have been treated in isolation hospitals since the beginning of the year. When summer starts, the situation may become unpredictable if the municipal disinfecting station fails to give prompt treatment to the local stagnant ponds, in which the larvae of malaria mosquitoes have been discovered.

Every morning entomologists from the public health service take up their nets and look for the larvae of anopheles mosquitoes in Moscow's ponds. The malaria carriers do not look different from ordinary woodland mosquitoes. Last year they were exterminated manually, as it were, by scattering bacterial insecticides on all the local areas of water. Since the beginning of 2000, fighting mosquitoes has been funded by mere promises. Meanwhile, as many as 14 people have already been treated in isolation hospitals.

For this trader from Tajikistan the diagnosis came as no surprise. It was a usual three-day bout of malaria. Guests from this country regularly appear in [the Moscow isolation hospital at] Sokolinaya Gora. His neighbor, a man from Pakistan, has had malaria for two months but thought it was flu. The disease is called a great imitator. It is easier to prevent it than to diagnose.

There is no panacea against malaria. Not long ago all [Russian] tourist companies were instructed to issue notices to their customers and advise them to take proper medicines before going on safari, for instance. The only vaccination the tourists going on exotic holidays are obliged to have is the one against yellow fever. They will not be able to step on foreign soil without having a vaccination certificate. All the rest, including vaccinations against hepatitis and typhoid, are the personal affair of every tourist.

Our globe-trotters bring everything back from the black and yellow continents, including the larvae of parasites in their stomachs. Even renowned tourist areas are not completely safe.

[Medical doctors from] the institute of parasitology and tropical medicine are fighting against echinococcosis contracted in Turkey. The worm can reach a huge size in the human body.