07 September 2005, 20:12
Hundreds suffer because of negligence
Several hundred servicemen in Georgia who received training under the guidance of American instructors on the Georgian Defence Ministry's base in Vaziana were infected with hepatitis C. "The cause of the sweeping infection among servicemen is the drinking water that fails to meet any standards," Georgii Liluashvili, a former military doctor at the Vaziana base, said at a press conference on Wednesday.
He said that he had repeatedly warned the unit command what the after-effects of contaminated water might be, but no reaction followed, according to Interfax. "After repeated warnings I was simply fired from the Georgian armed forces," said Mr Liluashvili.
"With the assistance of an intergovernmental organisation of young lawyers of Georgia, specialists recently analysed the drinking water on the base and established that it was hazardous to man because faecal waters got to the water supply system," the doctor said.
