Grades one to eight of all Moscow schools will close Monday and only reopen the following week, Komsomolskaya Pravda quoted a spokesman for the city's education department as saying.

"Even today, some classes are already missing half their students," said an official with Moscow's health control service, which recommended the shutdown Friday.

Nearly 92,000 Muscovites are currently suffering from the flu or respiratory infections, with more than 52,000 of them children, the city's public health department chief Leonid Pechatnikov told Interfax.

The shutdown does not affect Moscow kindergartens or ninth through 11th grades, Komsomolskaya Pravda said.