MOSCOW, August 06. /ITAR-TASS/. The medical services of Moscow’s airports have tightened anti-Ebola fever precautious, the consumer rights watchdog Rospotrebnadzor has confirmed to ITAR-TASS.

“In order to identify those infected among arrivals all passengers are invited to walk through special frame detectors that sound an alarm if the temperature’ of the person’s body is above normal,” Rospotrebnadzor specialists said.

The agency explained that the procedure was applicable to all European flights, because there are no direct air links connecting Moscow with the epidemic-stricken countries - Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia.

As Rospotrebnadzor chief Anna Popova said earlier, “all arriving flights are checked, with special attention being paid to passengers who feel unwell, and measures are taken to quarantine them and take to hospital.”

“All infection hospitals have been checked for the ability to accommodate and treat patients with particularly risky infections,” she said.

The first outbreak of the Ebola fever was registered and described in 1976, when 602 cases were identified.

“Bearing in mind that the diagnostic methods then were still embryonic one can say that the real number of those affected was far higher. The mortality rate then was as high as 72%,” Popova said.

From that moment on Ebola epidemics flared up in Africa with regularity. In 2007 there were 413 registered cases and the mortality rate was 54%

“The epidemic that began last March has proved the worst ever, with 1,603 cases registered, including 887 (55%) lethal ones. The current outbreak has certain peculiar features. It is the first in western Africa and the first one to have hit urban population,” Popova said.