ST. PETERSBURG. February 17. /TASS/. A district court in Russia’s second largest city of St. Petersburg on Monday sustained a lawsuit filed by the city’s chief sanitary doctor and ruled the young woman who has escaped from coronavirus quarantine be taken back to hospital for mandatory examination.
"The court has ruled to sustain the administrative claim. Alla Ilyina will be placed under medical supervision," Olga Tarasova, a judge of St. Petersburg’s Petrogradsky District Court, pronounced the ruling.
Ilyina was in the court building but was present in the courtroom when the ruling was pronounced. She learned about the court decision from journalists. An ambulance car was waiting at the court building to take her to the Botkin Hospital for Infectious Diseases.
Ilyina told journalists she would not challenge the court ruling. Previously, she was categorically against isolation, saying however she was ready to do all necessary tests.
Last week, St. Petersburg’s chief sanitary doctor Natalia Bashketova filed a lawsuit in court demanding that Ilyina should undergo mandatory examination. According to Bashketova, medical examination on February 4 and 5 diagnosed Ilyina, who had arrived from China in early February, with an acute viral disease. Infection with the novel coronavirus was not be ruled out.
Ilyina was taken to the Botkin Hospital but left it without permission and has been refusing to return for further examination. The Russian consumer rights watchdog and St. Petersburg’s health authorities claimed the patient had committed an administrative offense by breaking quarantine regulations, potentially exposing other people to the virus.
A pneumonia outbreak caused by the COVID-19 virus (previously known as 2019-nCoV) was reported in China’s city of Wuhan, a large trade and industrial center with a population of 11 million, in late December. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the coronavirus outbreak in China a global health emergency, characterizing it as an epidemic with multiple foci.
Cases of the new coronavirus have also been reported in 24 other countries, including Russia. According to the latest update, the number of confirmed cases of the disease has exceeded 71,000, with about 1,800 people killed by this coronavirus. More than 11,000 have recovered.