Cholera Brings Fear, Vigilance To Capital

In the hottest part of the afternoon on Wednesday, there were only two swimmers in Kapotnya: a boy retrieving his soccer ball, and a husky named Caesar.


One of them did not know about the cholera bacteria found in the Moskva River last Friday, and the other did not care. But for the remaining sunbathers peering out of the high grass near the river, the scare was getting difficult to ignore.


"Of course we are frightened. We come here all the time. Is it true, that the bacteria is virulent?" asked Natasha, 32, who was heading toward the river with her son and her bikini. "It's fine just to tan, isn't it?"


The City Sanitation Inspectorate, which closed four kilometers of the river over the weekend, released no more details about the bacteria traces, or about the two Muscovites who have reportedly contracted the disease here.


By Wednesday, local authorities had taken care of the most immediate problem: Keeping people out of the water. Residents said the development's 25,000 residents were all aware of the danger, and militiamen were patrolling the shoreline, tacking up signs that read "Risk of Infectious Disease."


"From time to time they have found bacteria here, but this time it's really serious," said militia officer Roman Karayev, as he drove down the shoreline.


Other riverside beaches and ponds may be closed for testing, said Vitaly Yurchuk, a spokesman for the Emergency Situations Ministry, in an interview with Reuters. "We strongly advise Muscovites not to swim in the Moskva River," he said.


The intense heat of recent days has driven Muscovites to the city's numerous bathing spots in lakes and ponds and along the Moskva. Tuesday was recorded as the hottest day in June in 100 years, with temperatures of more than 30 degrees Celsius, Reuters reported.


Meanwhile, despite these warnings, doctors said a local epidemic remains highly unlikely if people take elementary health precautions.


"No one says you can't be infected. Every year there are two, or three, or maybe four cases in Moscow. But it's nothing to worry about," said Yury Fyodorov of the Health Ministry's infectious disease unit. He added that he would "estimate the chances of an epidemic at zero."


This summer's unusual heat has clearly affected epidemiological conditions, though. Between June 5 and 7, 677 people suffered intestinal infections in Moscow. Normally, fewer than 900 cases are reported all summer, according to Sanitation Department statistics, Interfax reported.


There has been an alarming rise in dysentery, with 1,179 reported cases in the capital and 14 reported deaths during the first five months of 1995, the report said.


Meanwhile, in Russia's southern regions and in former Soviet republics, the cholera toll keeps climbing. The first person has died from cholera and 56 people are sick in the southern Ukrainian city of Nikolayev, where a local river is now entirely off limits for swimming and fishing.


Three people have died in Tajikistan and 15 cases are registered there. Cholera cases were also reported in Rostov, Makhachkala, and the Azeri capital of Baku, Itar-Tass reported.