Filenews 6 June 2022
The coronavirus is sweeping through Mariupol, both the Ukrainian population and its Russian occupiers, who have decided to impose a lockdown on the half-ruined city of southern Donbass, further exacerbating the situation for the population.
As Petro Andriushenko, an adviser to mayor Mariupol, confirmed on Ukrainian television before the Russian invasion of the Azov city, the Russians imposed lockdowns that could last until early July.
Tragic health conditions
It is a city that is now obliged to live with the soup kitchens of the Russians, completely excluded from all sides and with tragic hygiene conditions. It is characteristic, according to Mr. Andriushenko, that the pandemic control team sent by Moscow to Mariupol has competence not only for the coronavirus but also for cholera.
Daily bodies are transported by trucks and taken for identification or for direct burial. The intruders do not have enough capacity in cemeteries and open mass graves, denounces Mr. Andriushenko.
The aquifer is polluted
Contagious agents easily pollute the marine environment and reach the water that supplies the city. Add here multiple shallow graves and rotten waste to the streets and you have a fairly expected result. Water, the sea, the sources of drinking water are contaminated and the risk of an outbreak of communicable diseases becomes critical to such a point that we have already recorded several isolated cases. We rely only on the data that we can access under the given circumstances, but even this data is enough to claim that the epidemic has already begun," Andriusenko said.
He also reported a sudden and mass death of sea fish, which is unusual during the summer season without extremely high temperatures.
Even dysentery can trigger cholera
"It is quite difficult to determine the cause of death, but we are definitely seeing a trend of increased mortality. Everything indicates that now Mariupol is actually going through the first phase of the epidemic. Local administrative sources confirm that the intruders have put the city under lockdown. At the moment it is a "soft" version of the lockdown, which is rather a bureaucratic formality. However, I guess even the Russians have already realised that they are dealing with an epidemic," he explained.
As for the exact nature of a new disease, Andriusenko hypothesized that it can be either cholera or a more common dysentery, or even any viral gastrointestinal infection.
"All these cases can easily be caused by poor hygiene. However, the worst part is that under the given circumstances of the complete failure of the healthcare system, the lack of medicines, the lack of access to specialized laboratories, the lack of vaccines and other basic routine supplies, even such a simple thing as the outbreak of dysentery can lead to many thousands of fatalities. You do not even have to wait for the cholera season to begin. Although if cholera comes into play, the death toll will be very difficult to calculate," Andriushenko added.
