The health and safety watchdog has urged Russians to avoid traveling abroad during the upcoming fall and winter holidays to limit the risk of contracting the Ebola virus.
"These holidays would better be spent in Russia," Anna Popova, head of the Rospotrebnadzor watchdog, said Thursday in comments carried by the Interfax news agency.
"Due to the unstable situation in the world regarding infectious diseases, it is recommended to limit all travel and vacations abroad," she was quoted as saying. "It is important to take care of yourself, your health, the health of your children."
She said that Russians had no reason to worry about contracting the virus at home, but said they should still wash hands regularly and "not allow unknown substances to contact the skin," Interfax reported.
Health workers have ended the monitoring of 477 students who had arrived since the start of the school year in Russia from West Africa — where the worst Ebola outbreak in history is raging — after ruling that none of them carried the virus, Popova told Interfax.
Twenty-six of the students had been isolated in hospitals because they exhibited some symptoms that could be consistent with Ebola, but they all have tested negative for the virus, the report said.
Initial Ebola symptoms include high temperature, headache or nausea — signs that can also accompany a number of other diseases such as a cold or flu.