Organizational measures aiming to combat COVID-19 in the Russian Federation: the first experience

Background Coronavirus infection (COVID-19) spreading took place in the Russian Federation in recent 10 months. Russia has a reliable and effective governmental public health infrastructure that worked at an advanced level to control the situation since the first day of receiving reports about pneumonia ofunknown etiology cases in December 2019 and the registration of the first COVID-19 cases in Wuhan, China, in January 2020. Several measures were applied (administrative, organizational, technical, sanitary, and hygiene), nevertheless, creating an adequate response to the COVID-19 pandemic was 15 a challenge for the Russian national public health authorities. Areas covered We used official information of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation, Service for Surveillance on Consumer Rights Protection and Human Wellbeing (Rospotrebnadzor), the Russian Federation Government, and Moscow Government, and the official World Health Organization (WHO);the analysis was conducted between 1 December 2019 and 31 March 2020. Expert opinion Rospotrebnadzor implemented a set of measures which comprised of three stages: 1. Stage 1 Preventive and sanitary measures; 2. Stage 2 Organizational and technical measures; 3. Stage 3 Organizational and preventive measures.