The ventilators' safety was called into question a day earlier after
a fire at Saint George's Hospital in St Petersburg in which five
people died. That followed another fire at a hospital in Moscow
which killed one person on Saturday.
In both cases, sources told the TASS news agency that the source of
the fires had been faulty Aventa-M ventilators.
Authorities have procured hundreds of Aventa-Ms to help hospitals
cope with coronavirus patients. Though Russia has so far suffered a
low number of virus-related deaths compared to other countries, at
242,271 its infections tally is now the second highest in the world
after the United States.
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Russia sent a batch of the same ventilators to the United States in
early April, though U.S. officials say the machines were not needed
in the end.
Roszdravnadzor, the state healthcare regulator, said in a statement
it was suspending the use in Russia of all such machines made after
April 1.
It gave no explanation for the suspension, but noted that the
ventilators had been used in the two hospitals where the recent
fires had taken place which it said a day earlier it was looking
into.
It was not immediately clear exactly how many new ventilators the
suspension would cover.
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Public procurement data cited by the Interfax news agency said that the Saint
George Hospital in St Petersburg spent 441 million roubles ($6 million) last
month on buying 237 Aventa-M ventilators.
The procurement contract was finalised on April 24, it said. Each ventilator
cost 1.86 million roubles.
The ventilators are made at the Urals Instrument Engineering Plant (UPZ) in the
region of Sverdlovsk.
Radio-Electronic Technologies Concern (KRET), which controls UPZ, said on
Tuesday that its ventilators had passed all the necessary tests and had been
used by medical facilities in Russia since 2012 without any safety concerns.
It urged people to avoid rushing to conclusions until the outcome of official
investigations into the fires was known.
(Additional reporting by Maria Kiselyova; Editing by Andrew Osborn)
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