Over 140 people have been hospitalized in the past three weeks with a diagnosis of toxic hepatitis in the region, the spokesman said.
"In connection with the sharp increase of poisoning with bootleg alcohol, which has already resulted in 15 deaths, a state of emergency has been declared in the Pskov Region," the spokesman said.
Alcohol poisoning cases are regularly reported in regions throughout Russia. Earlier in the year the interior minister called them a national tragedy, and urged a crackdown on bootleg alcohol sales in the country, saying about 42,000 are killed or become disabled from alcohol poisoning every year.
The branch of the Federal Service for the Oversight of Consumer Protection and Welfare in the Perm Territory in Russia's Urals said earlier: "A total of 125 bootleg alcohol poisoning cases were reported between September 11 and October 20. The condition of 115 people is moderately serious, three are in a satisfactory condition, but seven are a serious condition."
The service said 73 patients have been diagnosed with toxic hepatitis, and that poisoning has been reported in 29 residential areas of the Perm Territory. The victims appear to have drunk alcohol-based detergents and other harmful chemicals distributed in vodka bottles.
In the city of Kamensk-Uralsky in the neighboring Sverdlovsk Region, three people reportedly died and about 60 were hospitalized with toxic hepatitis after drinking ethanol-based glass cleaner sold as vodka in September and early October.
Hospital officials said their livers have been severely damaged and are almost beyond treatment. Checks of shops and drugstores were conducted in the city in the wake of the mass poisoning.
Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev said in June: "Poisoning by bootleg alcohol in Russia has reached the scale of a national tragedy, and we must do everything to end sales of counterfeit products on Russian territory."
