A soldier of active service from a unit of the Yekaterinburg Air Force and Air Defence formation of the Central Military District died on January 21 of flu A/H1N1 (California) at the Chelyabinsk regional hospital. He had been earlier treated at a district military hospital, Itar-Tass learnt from spokesman of the public relations service of the Russian Defence Ministry. "On January 13, the type of the disease was confirmed with laboratory investigations by specialists of the Chelyabinsk Centre of Hygiene and Preventive Measures. Doctors failed to save the soldier despite measures of intensive therapy, taken by civil and military medics," the service noted. The public relations service explained that the soldier was called up for military service on last December 20 from the Kemerovo Region. "It was established during preliminary investigation that the servicemen could catch infection at the place of his permanent residence where cases of such infection were registered. Its symptoms may develop in an intensively progressing form after a month of incubation period," supposed the public relations service. The ministry reported that "on orders from Defence Minister Anatoly Serdyukov, a commission of specialists of the main military medicine department of the ministry, led by its chief Alexander Belevitin, was dispatched to the Central Military District to examine sanitary and epidemiological situation in military units and to conduct a range of preventive measures in order to stave off mass spread of viral and acute respiratory infections." It became known on Saturday of the death of another soldier from military unit No. 86727 Konstantin Tsybuk. A prosecution inspection established that on January 15, officer on duty at the unit Igor Gurov, on learning that the state of health of private Tsybuk deteriorated and that his temperature was very high, did not report this event to the commander of the unit and did not take measures to render skilled medical aid. As a result, Tsybuk was brought to a medical establishment too late, and he died the next day. A criminal case was instituted against Gurov under the article "Negligence". According to the latest data, 63 servicemen are treated at the Chelyabinsk military hospital with the diagnosis "pneumonia".
