Uzbekistan, Tashkent, 15 July / corr. Trend T.Zhukov / Uzbekistan havo yullari (the Uzbek Airlines) national air company (NAC), takes all necessary measures to prevent enterovirus infection, Mirsaid Alimov, chief doctor of the Uzbek Airline Company's state sanitary and epidemiological supervision centre, said on 14 July.
"Our doctors conduct explanatory work with crew of flying planes on dangerous diseases and their consequences," Alimov said. "Pilot units and flight attendants are informed enough about the countries where plague, bird flu, enterovirus-71 infection, most dangerous disease cases were registered, as well as their distinguishing peculiarities. During flights this knowledge will help them to expose citizens with signs of such diseases."
According to the Uzbek official, medical and sanitary supervision places began to operate at all international airports of the country. "They are supplied with rooms, which was equipped with necessary medical equipment, medicines, disinfectant substances and protective clothing. Experienced epidemiologist doctors, medical assistants and disinfectors work there," the chief doctor of the air company said. The sanitary doctors examine health of passengers, who arrive in the country, quality of imported food production and other goods on epidemiological security. Arriving passengers are rendered medical aid in necessary cases and measures are taken to prevent spread of infection disease when they are detected. Arriving passengers' hand luggage is subjected to a veterinary and phytosanitary examination.
At present, the company offers flights to all huge cities of Uzbekistan and more than 40 on international flights to clients, the NAC marketing unit told Trend . The air company increased passenger transportation by 16.4% in 2007 as compared to 2006 to 1.972mln people. General growth of passenger transportation is connected with optimization of commercial loading and increase of flights to 22,938. Particularly, flights are carried from Tashkent to Sochi and Cairo. Frequencies of weekly flights were increased from Tashkent to New York (twice a week), to Tel Aviv (four times a week), to Bangkok (five times a week), from Samarqand to St.-Petersburg (three times a week).
The correspondent can be contacted at - [email protected]