Russia on Tuesday reported its first confirmed deaths from swine flu since the disease developed into a global epidemic this year.
Four deaths were reported, including a 53-year-old woman who died Tuesday in a Moscow hospital, the Interfax news agency reported, citing the city health department.
Russia's top epidemiologist, Gennady Onishchenko, said Russia's first swine flu victims were two women, aged 29 and 50, who died last month in a hospital in Chita, a Siberian city near the Mongolian border.
The younger woman was more than eight months pregnant and doctors were unable to save the baby, Russian news agencies reported, citing regional officials.
The Health Ministry said a third death in the Siberian region also was caused by swine flu. The ministry scolded regional health authorities for not alerting Moscow to the seriousness of the local flu cases.
Russia reported its first confirmed case of swine flu in May, and there are now more than 1,300 registered cases. The worst-hit regions are in Russia's east, along the Mongolian and Chinese borders and Pacific coast, Onishchenko said.
Classrooms and in some cases entire schools have been closed in many regions across the country. In Moscow, the closures have affected thousands of children.
The World Health Organization said last week that about 5,000 people have been reported as having died from swine flu worldwide. The figure is considered an underestimate, since most countries have stopped counting individual swine flu cases.
