Chief sanitary doctor Gennady Onishchenko — who last week demanded that Russia ban students from traveling to study in Britain because of the swine flu outbreak there — on Monday extended his travel advice to football fans.
Thousands of Russian football fans were expected to travel to Cardiff to attend a 2010 World Cup series game between Russia and Wales on Sept. 9.
Speaking at a news conference, Onishchenko called the trip “unnecessary,” stressing that football fans demonstrate their emotions by shouting and this would help spread the disease at an overcrowded stadium.
Meanwhile, the head of the All-Russia Union of Sports Fans, Alexander Shprygin, recommended that fans who do travel to Wales drink the local whisky to protect themselves from the swine flu and “to get rid of any symptoms,” RIA-Novosti said.
“Amid the global financial crisis, Russian fans will save the whole industry in Britain because the Brits themselves have nearly stopped drinking whisky,” he said.
The notoriously outspoken Onishchenko, whom a deputy prosecutor general criticized last month for not doing more to slow the spread of swine flu in Russia, also said Monday that 55 cases of the illness had been registered in the country. Many of them were brought by travelers from Britain, he said.
Later on Monday, the Russian Travel Industry Union said some fans had already started canceling trips planned around the football match.
“The number of cancellations varies from company to company, but on the whole it has been significant,” spokeswoman Irina Tyurina said, Interfax reported.
Last week, she criticized Onishchenko’s call to ban students from traveling to Britain, calling it a “strange, inappropriate measure.”
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