MOSCOW, August 26 (RIA Novosti) -Several Russian medical brigades are ready to substitute a team sent to Guinea to fight Ebola, or if necessary, start working in other West African countries, the head of Russian consumer rights watchdog Rospotrebnadzor said Tuesday.
“They will work in shifts. We have not one, but several brigades ready. The geography of their action is currently being determined, it will depend on the needs of these countries,” Anna Popova, the head of Rospotrebnadzor, told journalists.
On Thursday, a group of Russian virologists, epidemiologists and bacteriologists left Russia to help curb the Ebola epidemic in Guinea. The team is expected to spend five months there.
According to Popova, the main aims of the Russian medical experts in Guinea are to help locals, especially in diagnosing Ebola, and to protect Russian citizens in West Africa.
The watchdog head has also announced that Russia has established close cooperation with the Guinean Health Ministry and the WHO representatives in the country. “The cooperation with the country’s highest authorities has been established. Colleagues were met very well there and we hope that their work there will be effective,” Popova said, adding that Russian Health Ministry specialists may also join the Rospotrebnadzor team in Guinea. “It will all be determined by the needs: the place, the team and the time,” she said.
According to the latest figures provided by WHO, the current outbreak of Ebola has afflicted 2,615 people, mostly in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, killing 1,427 of them.
