547 Diagnosed With Hepatitis A In Russia

13 June 2005 (RFE/RL) -- Health officials say the number of people who have contracted hepatitis A in Russia's Tver Oblast has grown to 547.

The local headquarters for disease control reported that of those diagnosed with hepatitis A, 142 were children.

Cases of hepatitis A have also been reported in Smolensk and Moscow oblasts.

Sales of the brewery' products have been suspended.

The outbreak was being blamed on a beer brewing plant in the Tver Oblast city of Rzhev.

Hepatitis A is an illness that is often epidemic but usually benign caused by a virus that attacks the liver.

(ITAR-TASS/AFP)