Issue #1105 (71), Friday, September 16, 2005

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Hepatitis, Typhoid on Rise

By Irina Titova

Staff Writer

St. Petersburg is facing a rise in the number of hepatitis A and typhoid cases, but less dysentery, city experts say.

During the first eight months of 2005 the hepatitis A rate more than doubled over the same period in 2004, Oleg Parkov, head of the city’s Rospotrebnadzor or Russian Customers Watch said.

This year St. Petersburg registered 2,519 cases of hepatitis A, compared to 1,093 cases for the same period in 2004.

“This year we have a periodic increase in hepatitis A, which happens once every five years, when the population’s immunity against hepatitis A weakens,” Parkov said.

He said that hepatitis A is transmitted through water, fruits and vegetables brought from other regions, or from people returning from vacations.

“This year we also had a serious outbreak of hepatitis A among the staff of the Pyatyorochka retail stores, with more than 100 people being infected,” Parkov said.

To provide for vaccinations against Hepatitis A until the end of 2005, the city needs to allocate an additional 13 million rubles from its budget, the city’s Health Committee said, Interfax reported Tuesday.

The city also experienced a rise in typhoid cases, with 30 people infected with the disease registered in the first eight months of this year, compared to eight people during the same period last year, Parkov said.

He said that typhoid is mainly transmitted by homeless people, a group that often suffers from it.

However, Parkov said that this year the city had 47 percent less dysentery cases, which he called “good news.”

Meanwhile, at a meeting on Tuesday the St. Petersburg authorities considered and approved a plan aimed at improving the sanitary and epidemiological situation in the city.

At the meeting, Igor Rakitin, acting head of the local department of Rospotrebnadzor said that the plan would decrease the number of stray animals in the city, implement preventive measures to cut down on tick and mosquito bites, and reduce the rat population, all of which exacerbate the problem.