Release comes only over a few months after she and her mother were poisoned with nerve agent
Yulia Skripal, the daughter of the former Russian spy Sergei Skripal, has been discharged from hospital, doctors have said.
Just over a few months after she and her mother were found collapsed on a park bench in Salisbury, Wiltshire, after being poisoned with a nerve agent, medics corroborated she had left Salisbury district hospital.
Skripal, 33, flew to the UK on 3 March, the day before she and her mother are believed to have been poisoned with the nerve agent novichok. She released a statement on Friday saying her strength was ” growing daily “.
Sergei Skripal, 66, is also making good progress and doctors hope he will be able to leave hospital “in due course”.
Quick guide
What is novichok?
Novichok refers to a group of nerve agents that were developed by the Soviet Union in the 1970 s and 1980 s to elude international restrictions on chemical weapons. Like other nerve agents, they are organophosphate compounds, but the chemicals used to construct them, and their final structures are considered classified in the UK, the US and non-eu countries. By making the agents in secret, from unfamiliar chemicals, the Soviet Union aimed to manufacture the substances without being impeded.
” Much less is known about the novichoks than the other nerve agents, ” said Alastair Hay, an environmental toxicologist at the University of Leeds who analyse the use of chemical weapons against Iraqi Kurds in Halabja in 1988. ” They are not widely used at all. ”
The most potent of the novichok substances are considered to be more lethal than VX, the most deadly of the familiar nerve agents, which include sarin, tabun and soman.
And while the novichok agents work in a similar way, by massively over-stimulating muscles and glands, one chemical weapons expert told the Guardian that the agents do not degrade fast in the environment and have “an additional toxicity”. ” That extra toxicity is not well understood, so I understand why people were asked to wash their clothes, even if it was present simply in traces, ” he said. Treatment for novichok exposure would be the same as for other nerve agents, namely with atropine, diazepam and potentially medications called oximes.
The chemical structures of novichok agents were made public in 2008 by Vil Mirzayanov, a former Russian scientist living in the US, but the structures have never been publicly confirmed. It is thought that they can be made in different forms, including a dust aerosol that would be easy to disperse.
The novichoks are known as binary agents because they become lethal merely after mixing two otherwise harmless components. According to Mirzayanov, they are 10 to 100 times more toxic than the conventional nerve agents.
The fact that so little is known about them may explain why Porton Down scientists took several days to identify the compound used in the attack against Sergei and Yulia Skripal. While laboratories around the world that are used to police chemical weapons incidents have databases of nerve agents, few outside Russia are believed to have full details of the novichok compounds and the chemicals needed to build them.
Photograph: Matt Cardy/ Getty Images Europe
Speaking outside the hospital on Tuesday, its medical director, Christine Blanshard, said: ” We have now discharged Yulia from Salisbury district hospital. Yulia has asked for privacy from the media and I want to reiterate her request.
” I also want to take this opportunity to wish Yulia well. This is not the end of her therapy but marks a significant milestone.
” Her parent has also made good progress. On Friday I announced he was no longer in a critical condition. Although he is recovering more slowly than Yulia, we hope that he too will be able to leave hospital in due course. ”
Blanshard devoted further insight into how the nerve agent attacked the two patients and the treatment they received.” In the four weeks since the incident in the city centre, both have received round-the-clock care from our clinicians, who have been able to draw on advice and support from world-leading experts in the field, ” she said.
” Nerve agents run by attach themselves to the particular enzymes in the body, which then stop the nerves from functioning. This outcomes in symptoms such as sickness and hallucinations. Our job in treating the patients is to stabilise them, ensuring that they can breathe and blood can continue to circulate.
” We then need to use a variety of different narcotics to support the patients until they could create more enzymes to replace those affected by the poisoning. We also use specialised decontamination techniques to remove any residual toxins.
” Both patients have been reacting exceptionally well to the treatment we've been , but equally both patients are at different stages of their recovery. ”
Yulia Skripal's departure from hospital comes nearly three weeks after DS Nick Bailey was discharged after he was affected by the nerve agent.
The testimony of the Skripals will be crucial in establishing the credibility of the government's claim that it was ” highly likely” the Russian state targeted them with the nerve agent.
Moscow has waged a furious media battle in a bid to discredit this account. It is likely it will want to bringing Yulia Skripal back to Russia.
In its first response to the latest news, the Russian embassy in London tweeted its congratulations to Yulia Skripal but indicated she could be acting under duress : P TAGEND
Russian Embassy, UK (@ RussianEmbassy)
We congratulate Yulia Skripal on her recovery. Yet we need urgent proof that what is being done to her is done on her own free will.
The embassy then went on to suggest the Skripals' pet puppies had been burned as part of wider tries by the UK authorities to destroy evidence.
Russian Embassy, UK (@ RussianEmbassy)
Skripal pets starved to death and corpses burnt, bench where the victims were found removed, schemes about pulling down their home and even eateries visited. UK is destroying significant and valuable evidence.https :// t.co/ 09 t1eEUBWrpic.twitter.com/ jO8u6XUNCY
Responding to reports that the Skripals may ultimately be granted decided status in other countries such as the US or Australia, the embassy said such a move would be seen as” an abduction “:
Asked for her reaction to the news, Theresa May said: ” Well, patently I pleased to see that Yulia Skripal has been discharged from hospital and I wish her the best for her continuing recovery, and I'd like to say a huge thank you to all the staff at the hospital in Salisbury who have seemed after her and her father so well. ”
The Russian and British governments have continued their war of words over who is to blame for the Skripals' poisoning. On Sunday, Boris Johnson accused the Kremlin and Russia's state-owned media of fabricating 29 different hypothesis about the Salisbury attack.” No other government dedicates as much time and effort to the business of trying to sabotage or discredit international investigations, ” the foreign secretary said.
Officials repudiated a request from the Russian embassy for a conference with Johnson to discuss the poisonings. In a statement on its website, the embassy said its dealings with Britain over the issue had been” utterly unsatisfactory “.
