Who told UIA: why did children in Odintsovo get massively sick with salmonellosis
A criminal case has been opened in Odintsovo on the fact that children in kindergartens have salmonellosis. According to Izvestia, this diagnosis was confirmed in 30 of the 46 children who took the tests, as well as in one of the employees of the food store. Bacteria were also found in daily samples in lettuce and bread. Sources claim that this is the sixth case of intestinal infection in the city since the beginning of the year. Moreover, this time cases of the disease have been reported since mid-March, but the local epidemic could not be stopped. In all kindergartens, children are fed by the UIA Food Processing Plant Dobroye Cafe. This is a municipal institution that operates, in fact, bypassing competitive procedures — according to a state assignment from the city administration. For more information about the situation in Odintsovo, see the Izvestia article.
How many children got sick
The fact that children in Odintsovo were massively hospitalized due to intestinal infection caused by salmonellosis became known in mid-April. On the same day, against the background of media publications, the Rospotrebnadzor department for the Moscow Region announced that it was investigating cases of intestinal infection "among children attending kindergarten No. 23." In response to a request from Izvestia, the department said that information about acute intestinal infection in this preschool began to arrive from parents in the form of oral telephone calls on April 14 and 15.
— In March 2026, cases of intestinal infection were reported among pupils of another educational institution. An epidemiological investigation with laboratory control was conducted in relation to the kindergarten and the catering operator, and a set of anti—epidemic measures was organized," the department added.
It was noted that salmonella and isolated cases of astrovirus were isolated from the patients, and during the epidemiological investigation violations of sanitary requirements at food stores and in kindergarten were revealed. Protocols on administrative offenses against the catering organizer have been drawn up.
The Main Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee of Russia for the Moscow region has opened a criminal case under the article on the provision of services that do not meet safety requirements and caused poisoning of kindergarten pupils (paragraph "b" of Part 2 of Article 238 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). The message of the GSU IC indicates that on April 9, 27 pupils of a kindergarten in Odintsovo aged from two to seven years old applied to the hospital for medical help.
At the same time, the prosecutor's office of the Moscow region reported that from April 9 to April 16, 42 children and two employees of the institution sought medical help in one of the kindergartens. Seven children were hospitalized.
A source familiar with the situation told Izvestia that salmonellosis was confirmed in tests in 30 out of 46 children, as well as in one employee of the food store.
— In addition, salmonella was found in daily samples in corn salad and bread, which means that secondary insemination occurred, that is, someone with dirty hands was cutting bread and preparing salad on the same equipment after raw chicken. This is unsanitary conditions and a violation of technology at the same time," said the source.
The source claims that this is the sixth case of intestinal infection in Odintsovo since January 2026.
He also says that Rospotrebnadzor revealed a decrease in portions by about a third during inspections — information about this had previously been brought to the Ministry of Education of the Moscow Region.
Rospotrebnadzor is currently preparing documents for transfer to the Investigative Committee for all the revealed facts.
Izvestia sent a request to the Odintsovo city administration. No response has been received at the time of publication.
When did the salmonella epidemic start?
Valeria Klenina's two children, six-year-old Varvara and three-year-old Lev, succumbed to each other just on April 9th and 10th after lunch at kindergarten No. 23. The children had a very high fever (up to 39.6 degrees), vomiting and loose stools. After a slight improvement in their condition over the weekend, the children became ill again, and on April 13 they were admitted to an infectious diseases hospital.
— Upon admission, they took all the tests, but immediately there were suggestions that it was salmonellosis, since cases had already been recorded in kindergarten, which we did not know about until that moment, — the children's mother told Izvestia. — This week we received confirmation from Rospotrebnadzor, which took tests on April 11, that salmonellosis and astrovirus were detected in children.
Valeria Klenina added that she had heard even before her children became ill that the kindergarten on Belorusskaya Street, the preschool department at school No. 3, was closed for a short time. However, this was unofficial information, and there was no information about the mass of cases at that time.
Izvestia found out that the problem goes far beyond just one kindergarten No. 23. According to the editorial office, there are also cases among children in kindergartens. № 13, 39, 55, 58, 77, the preschool department at school No. 3 (the outbreak in this garden is apparently the earliest), as well as at school No. 1. Cases of intestinal infection have been recorded since the middle or even the beginning March, and not just from April 9th to April 16th.
One of the kindergarten students at school No. 3 fell ill on March 17. On March 20, he was admitted to the infectious diseases department in Kommunarka and is still on sick leave. Salmonellosis has been confirmed in the laboratory. According to the child's mother, several children fell ill at that time, and at least five were taken to hospitals: the L.M. Roshal Children's Research and Clinical Center, the Odintsovo Infectious Diseases Hospital, and Kommunarka. Some were admitted to medical institutions in serious condition.
— As far as I know, the kindergarten was closed for one day for sanitation, but, as Rospotrebnadzor informed me, salmonellosis was not detected, — said the child's mother, who asked not to be named. — I believe that the suppliers who feed our children are to blame for the disease. I asked why the company was not being checked, because this is a massive disease, to which they replied: if the children got sick only in one garden, then the supplier was not to blame.
Another mother of a kindergarten student at school No. 3 reported that her son fell ill on the night of March 13-14.
"Later, we learned from other parents that the first cases were before March 8," she said in an interview with Izvestia. — A check was carried out in the garden, they took the contacts of all the parents whose children had symptoms, but no one called me, for example. We took the test for a fee, confirmed the salmonellosis ourselves and went to the pediatrician.
Another child from the same kindergarten got into the DNCC named after him. Roshal is in serious condition on the morning of March 15: due to an inversion of the intestines, he underwent surgery to remove his appendix. At the same time, it didn't get any easier — the temperature rose to 40 degrees. It wasn't until March 23 that the results of the analysis came back, which confirmed salmonellosis. Representatives of Rospotrebnadzor contacted my mother on the same day and gathered information. The next day, she sent an appeal to the agency with a request to investigate the causes of the incident, but so far no response has been received.
She also immediately reported the problem to the kindergarten administration, but there was no reaction. The authorities commented on the information about salmonellosis only after the outbreak in kindergarten No. 23, but they kept silent about the situation in kindergarten No. 3.
Who feeds the children in Odintsovo
The Dobroye Cafe food factory is responsible for feeding children in kindergartens and schools in Odintsovo. This is a municipal autonomous institution, its founder is the administration of Odintsovo city district. UIA "Good Cafe" feeds children not on the basis of a contract, but as part of a municipal task.
— In fact, it is a tool through which the municipality tells its own institution: "You feed the children in our kindergartens and schools, we give you money from the budget for this," Evgeny Lando, general director of the Contract Systems law firm, explained to Izvestia. — Relations are regulated by Federal Law No. 174 "On Autonomous Institutions" and Article 78.1 of the Budget Code of the Russian Federation. The law on the contract system (44-FZ) simply does not apply here, because formally there is no "procurement", there is financing of its own institution.
In this case, according to him, municipal institutions prepare their own food — they have cooks, kitchens, transport, logistics and other necessary for catering. At the same time, the parents of the children claim that the "Good Cafe" allegedly employs people without medical documents in the food store.
Meanwhile, products are purchased from third-party suppliers, and not under 44-FZ, but under 223—FZ, another federal law on the contract system, only with significantly lower transparency requirements.
— It is extremely difficult for an external observer to track down from whom and under what conditions the raw materials are purchased, — says Evgeny Lando.
Indeed, it turned out to be almost impossible to understand from the open documents on the public procurement website who received a contract for 12 million rubles for the purchase of food from UIA KP Dobroye Cafe in December 2025. Only the name of LLC "Nadezhda" is known, but neither the INN, which would allow us to uniquely identify the company, nor any other data is contained in the purchase documents.
Vladimir Chernigov, President of the Institute of Industrial Nutrition, notes that the problem in this case is initially embedded in the catering model: within the departmental process, the control system is obviously dependent and vulnerable. The expert assumes (and the information received from the parents confirms this) that there were signals about the problem earlier, but the control did not work as it should have.
Evgeny Lando also talks about the conflict of interests built into this construction.
"When catering through a direct contract with a private contractor under 44—FZ, the contractor is financially responsible, can be included in the register of unscrupulous suppliers, and the selection takes place on a competitive basis," he explains. — None of these tools work for a municipal institution. The founder of the UIA and its controller are one and the same person: the administration of the municipal district.
But the criminal and administrative liability of UIA officials remains in full: the head and responsible employees may be involved, including under Articles 236 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation ("Violation of sanitary and epidemiological rules") and Article 293 of the Criminal Code ("Negligence").
— Rospotrebnadzor has the right to impose an administrative fine and suspend the activities of the institution. The parents of the affected children can seek compensation for injury to health and moral damage in a civil procedure — the UIA is responsible for its property, and if it is insufficient, the founder, that is, the municipality, bears subsidiary responsibility, — adds the interlocutor of Izvestia.
A centralized catering model through a municipal factory can unify processes and optimize costs, but increases the requirements for quality control at all stages, emphasizes Nikita Surovezhko, deputy, head of the Commission on Entrepreneurship of the Council of Municipal Deputies of the Moscow district Timiryazevsky. According to him, it is necessary to involve external laboratories of independent auditors in this, as well as to check not only the documentation, but also the actual processes.
Salmonella can get into the food at any stage, says the parliamentarian. In raw materials (if they are taken cheaper and without strict input control), during heat treatment (it may be trivial to underheat the product due to old technology or cooking too large a batch of food) and during storage (if the cold chain is disrupted and the finished food is kept at room temperature), during transportation. Cross-contamination is also possible when vegetables are cut on a cutting board for raw meat or a knife and hands are not washed. The infection can be spread by staff with the disease.
— It is not surprising that most often it breaks down in municipal schemes, where there are more control problems, — Nikita Surovezhko summarizes.
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