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Water pipeline damaged in Ulyanovsk Region where 89 hospitalized

Damaged line is already repaired, the regional Ministry of Construction, Housing and Transport reports

ULYANOVSK, November 22. /ITAR-TASS/. Specialists have found the water pipeline damaged in the city of Inza, the Ulyanovsk Region, where 89 people suffering intestinal infection have been hospitalized, the head of the regional government's press service, Alexandra Mamayeva, told Itar-Tass on Friday.

The line is already repaired, the regional Ministry of Construction, Housing and Transport reports.

The mass disease outbreak among Inza residents may have been caused by infection in the water, experts say. Samples have been taken from local water sources for micro-biological tests, results of which will be known by the evening on November 23.

Special filters have been installed in the Inza water intake system and the water supply lines at two schools and two kindergartens. The filters will be taken for bacteriological analysis on November 23, the ministry's press service said.

Spring water delivery is organized in Inza for the present. Local residents are recommended to drink only boiled or bottled water. The tap water is hyper-chlorinated. The Inza water supplying company's personnel are on duty 24 hours a day.

Eighty nine people with intestinal infection symptoms have been hospitalized there.

Medical specialists went to every house to find out whether there were ill people, the regional Health Ministry reported. Some people who felt unwell did not call doctors. After the medics' visits, more people who had infection symptoms for more than one day were taken to hospitals.

Sixty one patients, 48 children and 13 adults, remained in the Inza district hospital on Friday. Twenty eight children aged under four were taken to the children's infection treatment hospital in Ulyanovsk, the regional ministry's press secretary Gulia Zabbarova said.

The regional prosecutor's office said the district's central hospital in Inza had reported about 95 such poisoning cases.

According to medics, most likely, the disease outbreak was caused by infected drinking water. Experts are conducting laboratory tests of water from local reservoirs. Tap water is the district is additionally disinfected. The Health Ministry recommends local residents to drink only bottled water, often wash hands with soap, disinfect things and places of common use and immediately call doctors if they feel poisoning symptoms.

Prosecutors have launched in inquiry over the infection outbreak.