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Coronavirus pandemic

Plane carrying Russian medical team, lab heading for South Africa — ministry

The flight is performed by order of Russian President Vladimir Putin

MOSCOW, December 11. /TASS/. An Ilyushin IL-76 plane of the Russian Emergencies Ministry has taken off from Volgograd, in southern Russia, carrying specialists of the Russian consumer and health welfare watchdog to Cape Town, the Russian Emergencies Ministry told TASS on Saturday.

"An IL-76 of the Russian Emergencies Ministry has been loaded with Rospotrebnadzor’s (the Federal Service for Surveillance on Consumer Rights Protection and Human Wellbeing) mobile laboratory mounted on a Kamaz vehicle at Volgograd’s airport and is heading for the South African Republic. There are virologists, epidemiologists and physicians of Rospotrebnadzor and the Russian Health Ministry along with an Emergencies Ministry task force on board the IL-76," the ministry said.

Earlier, a source had informed TASS that the special flight bound for South Africa had taken off.

The flight is performed by order of Russian President Vladimir Putin, following the request of his South African counterpart Cyril Ramaphosa. On Friday night, it departed from Moscow to Volgograd, where the laboratory was loaded on the plane.

On November 26, the World Health Organization (WHO) designated the B.1.1.529 variant identified in South Africa as a "Variant of Concern" and assigned it the Greek letter Omicron. In its statement, the WHO noted that "this variant has a large number of mutations, some of which are concerning." The epicenter of the spread of the Omicron strain is southern Africa. The highest number of those infected with it has been detected specifically in South Africa. The new strain has already been recorded in 57 countries. At the same time, not a single fatality has been documented among those infected with Omicron.

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