After six days of quarantine, 238 people who arrived in Moscow from a region of India affected by pneumonic plague were released Wednesday, but 28 are still being held under armed guard in a hospital on the outskirts of the city, according to the head of the hospital.


Alexander Zharkov said the people in question had arrived last Wednesday from Delhi on an Aeroflot flight and were immediately taken to the hospital in the town of Lyubertsy, 20 kilometers south-east of Moscow.


"We didn't even give them opportunity to go through customs. We didn't want to run the risk. Even one person could start an epidemic.The plague is much more horrible than anything else. Even cholera would seem like a light cold in comparison with plague," he said.


Zharkov said that people were fully isolated but given no special treatment.


"We are just observing them. It is extremely important to make sure that everybody is healthy," he said.


Zharkov also said that isolation was of a one-way character: People can get everything from their relatives but cannot send anything. They cannot contact their relatives by phone because the hospital does not have special phones for patients.


"People are calling us themselves and we give them all necessary information," he said.


Zharkov said there was not the slightest chance that anybody could penetrate the hospital from the outside or to break the quarantine from inside.


"Two buildings of the hospital are ringed by a double fence and guarded by Moscow OMON with machine guns, local police and regular hospital guards," he said.


Zarif Habibulin, head of the guards detachment at the hospital said Wednesday that the situation was calm and that no one had tried to break out.


"For us the mission is quite unusual. I have been working in the police for 25 years and don't remember anything like that. But we try our best to prevent all incidents," he said.


According to Zharkov, another group from India will arrive Friday and the hospital is ready to take them. Almost 200 Russian tourists are still in Delhi waiting for charter flights to take them home. Aeroflot has not yet followed the example of other airlines in lifting its ban on flights to India.


Tatyana Bykasova, wife of one of the tourists under quarantine, who came from the city of Cheboksary in order to meet her husband said Wednesday that she was happy that her husband had managed to leave India and did not hold anything against the authorities.


"When Oleg called from Delhi and said that all flights were canceled because of the plague we were horrified. Thank God he is here and healthy," she said.


According to Bykasova, almost all the tourists in her husband's group are still in Delhi, because the last Aeroflot flight had taken only state officials and specialists -- but he paid $300 and got a place.


Aeroflot officials confirmed that the company has no plans to resume regular flights to India in the near future.