Russians have been advised to avoid public transport and don face masks after an outbreak of swine flu in St Petersburg reached epidemic proportions.

At least 30 people have died in St Petersburg since an outbreak of the H1N1 virus began in December, local media reported on Monday.

“You need to take care of yourselves, because this flu is extremely unpleasant, dangerous, and carries a high risk of complications that can develop very quickly,” said Anna Popova, the head of Russia’s public health watchdog, on national television on Saturday.

The H1N1 virus, a form of flu that is particularly damaging to younger, healthy people, swept the globe in a worldwide pandemic that is believed to have killed 200,000 people in 2009.

Since then it has become one of three main strains of flu virus that circulate seasonally amongst humans.