In November of this year Russian authorities published on the Federal Portal of Draft Regulatory Legal Acts a new bill that obliges labour migrants arriving in Russia to give their fingerprints and conduct a health check for getting the right to stay in the country.
Moreover, for those coming to work in Russia from the countries of the former USSR the Chairman of the Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, offered the mandatory genomic registration. All this has been made amidst the fast-growing spread of the coronavirus with all its strains and was said to be aimed at ensuring the safety of the country residents.
Thus, the new law of the Russian government was published on November 30 on the same portal and will come into force on March 1, 2022. In the very it’s name the law states its main goal – “conducting a medical examination for the presence of infectious diseases that pose a danger to others”, referring also in its basis to another Russian law, about the sanitary and epidemiological well-being of the population.
According to the document, foreigners who receive a work permit must be tested for the number of dangerous infectious diseases and drug use and depending on the results of the examinations, a certificate and a medical report are issued. As follows from the order, they will be valid for three months. This made a lot of confusion among those wishing to work in Russia, as the idea was misunderstood – people got worried they have to pass those tests every three months to be able to save their working place. However, the country’s Ministry of Health explained that it will not be necessary to undergo repeated checks so often, RBC reports.
“The order issued by the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation provides for the establishment of requirements for the validity of documents. At the same time, it does not contain norms that would fix the need for regular re-examination every three months. We are talking only about the fact that the limitation period of documents submitted to the Ministry of Internal Affairs at the time of such provision should not exceed the deadline set by the order,” the department explained.
This means that a three months deadline must not be crossed on the moment of submitting the documents. Once the documents are submitted, there is no need to be stressed about another check in the next three months.
So, among the doctors which future foreign workers should visit in Russia are a therapist (or a family doctor), phthisiologist, dermatovenerologist, and infectious disease specialist. These doctors, as well as tests taken from a person, are needed to check a health state and secure other population of the country from tuberculosis, leprosy, syphilis, HIV, and COVID 19. The tests list also does not include anything extraordinary or sharply different from what Russians themselves regularly do (frankly speaking, their list includes much more tests, depending on the sphere of work). The tests for foreigners are only blood and urine analysis and fluorography.
The decision of the country’s authorities is quite reasonable and even expectable, as on September 3, the Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation, Tatyana Golikova, announced the official name of the project to protect the country’s population from biological threats, so the healthcare issue has not arisen from nowhere, RIA Novosti reports.
“The project, which started from the moment of our President’s address to the Federal Assembly, has already acquired its own name ‘Sanitary Shield’ […] To date, we believe that this project is one of the most necessary, because this is not the only pandemic that we will have to face in our lives,” Golikova said.
She noted that as part of the project, it is planned to launch a process of conducting express diagnostics all around the country. She noted that it will be possible to get the result of the express test within 60 minutes. Golikova also spoke about the planned increase in the number of laboratories working with dangerous viruses.
“By 2024, we plan to create 15 high-level protection laboratories in the Russian Federation, which, in fact, will be engaged in this. Now there are three such laboratories. You may ask, what is a high level of protection? This is against viruses and bacteria of the so-called pathogenicity groups 1 and 2. What is it? These are very contagious, very contagious, fatal diseases,” she explained.
Golikova said that 2030 should be the year when Russia will complete the project to create laboratories working with dangerous viruses completely, and the number of laboratories will increase to 36. In addition, she expects that by then the development of a vaccine against any infection should take place within 4 months.
“Today, scientific and engineering thought has reached a level that allows using biological, mathematical and other methods to design it as a constructor. To date, scientific research that goes in this direction allows us to set such deadlines,” Golikova concluded.
Ru-Main, 28.12.2021
