Putin Summons Officials To Discuss Measures Against Coronavirus

(Bloomberg) --

Russian President Vladimir Putin is calling senior officials to a meeting Wednesday to discuss “what is being done to prevent the spread of coronavirus” in the country, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Putin will hold talks with Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova, Health Minister Mikhail Murashko and the head of the Rospotrebnadzor public health watchdog, Anna Popova, on actions taken by ministries and state agencies, Peskov said. “The government is working very actively” on preventative measures, he said.

Popova told reporters Monday that officials from her agency had checked more than 1.3 million people traveling on flights and ground transportation since Dec. 31 in an effort to stop the deadly strain of coronavirus appearing in Russia, the state-run Tass news service reported. On Tuesday, health officials began screening Russian tourists returning from China for coronavirus, according to a statement from Rospotrebnadzor.

So far, Russia hasn’t reported any cases of people falling ill with the new virus. It shares a border with China stretching for 4,209 kilometers (2,625 miles) and strengthened controls at crossing points last week. Russia has positioned itself in recent years as a key airline hub connecting Europe and China, with Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport reporting that it ranked second behind Beijing in passenger traffic as of 2018.

Russia has also attracted increasing numbers of Chinese tourists and business visitors as relations between the two countries have grown closer.

While it hasn’t yet proved as deadly as the previous SARS outbreak in China, the coronavirus is spreading “significantly faster,” said Vladimir Gushchin, head of the Pathogens Population Variability Laboratory at Moscow’s Gamaleya Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology.

To contact the reporters on this story: Ilya Arkhipov in Moscow at iarkhipov@bloomberg.net;Stepan Kravchenko in Moscow at skravchenko@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Gregory L. White at gwhite64@bloomberg.net, Tony Halpin, Torrey Clark

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