As winter flu sweeps across eastern Europe, a Russian MP blames America for it
The United States has not publicly responded to the comments.
An outbreak of the A-H1N1 virus, also known as swine flu, has killed dozens of people across eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union over the past two months, including 18 people in Armenia and at least 50 in Ukraine.
Infections officially reached “epidemic” proportions in St Petersburg, where some 30 people are believed to have died, on January 22.
Moscow declared its own epidemic on Tuesday.
Children in face masks watch a performance at the circus in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv Photo: AP
Russian health officials have advised vulnerable people to take precautions like avoiding public transport and wearing face masks, and urged people to get flu jabs every year. No qualified practitioner has linked the outbreak to a foreign power.
The H1N1 virus, a form of flu that is particularly damaging to younger, healthy people, swept the globe in a worldwide pandemic that is believed to have killed 200,000 people in 2009.
Since then it has become one of three main strains of flu virus that circulate seasonally amongst humans.
Russian public health experts have said those who have died were not vaccinated.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) says the current outbreak does not resemble the 2009 pandemic in scale or deadliness.
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