Russian film director Maria Solovtsova died in Minsk from flu

The woman was taken to a Minsk hospital with symptoms of acute respiratory virus infection and died some days later.

Maria Solovtsova felt bad at the hotel, she had high body temperature. As Lenta.ru reports, a doctor prescribed antipyretics to her and the 44-year old woman felt better on weekend. Her state deteriorated on Monday.

Solovtsova’s colleagues, who came in Belarus for shooting, insisted that she should be taken to hospital. The film director arrived at hospital on Tuesday morning, she was transferred to an intensive care unit where she died later.

According to medical sources, Solovyova had symptoms of acute respiratory virus infection. Russian media note the movie director had flu-like symptoms. The cause of death will be determined by the y autopsy scheduled for Wednesday.

Solovtsova made documentaries, feature films and TV series. Her most well-known works are “I am a Soldier”, “The Apple”, “Good Luck Figuring out Women”, “Davy Jones 2”. She also worked as an actress and scriptwriter. Solovtsova worked as a dubbing director for Neva-1 studio since the mid-1990s, took part in dubbing The Beach, Fight Club, Star Wars, and others.

As the website charter97.org has earlier reports, information about deaths form flu and pneumonia in Belarus appears every day. According to official reports of the Health Ministry, 7 persons died from swine flu in Belarus. However the number of cases could be much higher as not all patients with pneumonia pass A(H1N1) tests. Laboratories are not ready for such a number of people. Considering the difference between the number of persons who passed tests and the real number of the infected, one could assume that in reality there are by one order more cases.

Despite the flu outbreak and death cases which have become more frequent, medical institutions of Minsk experience vaccines supply disruptions even against seasonal flu. Vaccination is not made in most hospitals. There is still no swine flu vaccine in Belarus. The Health Ministry promises that swine flu vaccine will be bought in Russia, however it is unknown when it would be received by Belarus. In pharmacies there is no Tamiflu medicine recommended for swine flu treatment, and even elementary antiviral medicines are absent.