According to Rospotrebnadzor, the source of anthrax infection in the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug has been localized. A 12-year-old teenager died. 90 people were hospitalized, populated areas Vaccination of people and animals continues. To combat the consequences of the epidemic, additional army units have been deployed to the region to destroy dead livestock and disinfect the area. The Investigative Committee is conducting a pre-investigation check. Lenta.ru looked into the causes and consequences of anthrax.
Biological attack
On Tuesday, August 2, the Ministry of Defense announced the build-up of an army group to eliminate an anthrax outbreak in Yamal. During the day, soldiers destroyed the remains of more than fifty deer, reports.
“The grouping of the Central Military District, which includes more than 200 military personnel, 19 units of special equipment, mobile laboratories, 4 Mi-8 helicopters and unmanned aerial vehicles aircraft, will be reinforced by another 50 specialists and 13 units of equipment from radiation, chemical and biological protection units,” the department notes.
Army specialists are transferred by military transport aircraft from Yekaterinburg to Salekhard.
Assistant to the commander of the Central Military District, Colonel Yaroslav Roshchupkin, explained that dead cattle are burned. At a temperature of 140 degrees, anthrax spores die. “They use old car tires, fire mixtures and petroleum products,” he said. “Upon completion, the soil is treated with a disinfectant solution.”
Monitoring of the area where the outbreak of the disease is localized is carried out using unmanned aerial vehicles.
In parallel with the military operation, security forces are conducting a pre-investigation check. Employees of the Investigative Committee of Russia are investigating whether the outbreak of a dangerous disease was the result of a violation of veterinary rules.
The TFR has not yet reported on the suspects, but the committee is most interested in the activities of government agencies whose powers include the timely detection of the disease and suppression of its spread. And also by how quickly the evacuation of people from the epizootic outbreak began. Investigators collect and summarize all known circumstances.
“It has been previously established that in the tundra zone of the Yamal region, since June 2016, there has been a massive death of deer from private livestock and a municipal reindeer herding enterprise,” says the department of the Investigative Committee for the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug. “To date, more than 2,000 animals have died.”
In the “dirty” area affected by the disease, specialists take samples of soil, water, air, vegetation and insects for laboratory research. Evacuation and vaccination of people from nearby areas continues. Universal vaccination of animals is carried out.
In the hearth
There is no threat of anthrax spreading to other regions. The head of Rospotrebnadzor, Anna Popova, told Lenta.ru about this.
“The outbreak has been localized. There is no threat to people of further spread of the disease, but all epidemiological measures continue until all animals are vaccinated and until we are convinced of the complete safety of people in this territory,” she emphasized.
Popova also said that on Tuesday, August 2, 10 people were discharged from the infectious diseases hospital after receiving antibiotic prophylaxis.
In total, ninety people were taken to the Salekhard district hospital with suspected anthrax. More than half of them (54) are children.
“Of those who were not hospitalized, but were under medical supervision, 269 people, 151 people successfully completed antibiotic prophylaxis,” the head of the supervisory agency summarized.
In total, as of August 2, out of 90 people admitted to the hospital, the diagnosis was confirmed in 20 patients, including eight children. During the day, there were no new calls with suspected anthrax, according to the administration of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug.
Rospotrebnadzor assures that a leak of biomaterial from the infectious diseases department of the hospital in Salekhard, where patients with suspected and confirmed anthrax are located, has been ruled out. To verify this, special studies were carried out by order of the department.
Trainspotting
The chief epidemiologist of Yamal Lyudmila Volova reported on the progress of the vaccination campaign on Tuesday, August 2. “We started doing this from the “clean zone” towards the source of infection in order to prevent the spread of infection. All people who were in the outbreak receive preventive treatment, and three days after its completion they will be vaccinated,” she explained.
The anthrax vaccine is given twice, three weeks apart, and then repeated annually. Currently, 90 thousand vaccines have been delivered to the region for residents of the Yamal, Priuralsky, Tazovsky, Nadymsky districts of the district.
In total, half a million people live in the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug. According to the chief infectious disease specialist at the Russian Ministry of Health, Irina Shestakova, there is no need to vaccinate everyone.
“It’s one thing when you really are in an epidemiologically problematic area. Or if you expect to travel to such a zone in the near future,” says Shestakova. “If these are citizens who are outside this territory and, due to the nature of their work and life, do not come into contact with animals or materials obtained from them, then I think that it is quite possible not to get vaccinated.”
There are victims
On August 1, it was reported that a 12-year-old teenager with a confirmed diagnosis of anthrax died in a Salekhard hospital. The administration of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug is confident that the cause of death was the intestinal form of the disease. It develops after eating the meat of an infected animal.
Governor Dmitry Kobylkin ordered to restore the course of treatment of the deceased child minute by minute and provide his parents with all the necessary assistance.
Information spread in the media that the boy’s grandmother, with whom he ate together, also died from anthrax, but the district government did not confirm this.
“An elderly woman was also in the hotbed of infection. She died a week ago, but had nothing to do with the dead boy. Samples have been taken from her, but anthrax has not yet been confirmed,” Nadezhda Noskova, head of the press service for the governor of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, told Komsomolskaya Pravda.
Living bacillus
Spores of the bacterium bacillus anthracis, the causative agent of the disease, are particularly tenacious and can survive up to 200 years. The source of infection most often is cattle. The corpse of an animal killed by anthrax contaminates the soil. Moss moss grown in such an area is dangerous for other animals. The disease is not transmitted from person to person.
The latest outbreak of the deadly infection, according to experts, was facilitated by an unusually warm summer for the region. The air temperature in Yamal rose to 35 degrees. The permafrost thawed, and anthrax spores fell from the ground into the water.
Photo: Konstantin Chalabov / RIA Novosti
People most often become infected through direct contact with an infected animal: when cutting carcasses, through leather products and other animal products. But the disease can be transmitted through water and air.
Anthrax has been known under different names since ancient times. At the end of the 18th century, the Russian doctor Stepan Andreevsky assigned her modern name. The human vaccine was created in 1940 by Nikolai Ginsburg and Alexander Tamarin from the Sanitary-Technical Institute of the Red Army. The military needed the medicine because the Japanese tried to use anthrax spores as a bacteriological weapon in Manchuria.
In terms of the number of victims, the outbreak of infection in the spring of 1979 in Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg) is considered the most severe. Then, out of 96 sick people, 64 died.
Until recently, the last victim of anthrax was considered to be a resident of the village of Druzhba, Tselinny District, Altai Territory. He died in August 2012. On average, no more than 11 cases of human infection with this infection are recorded per year throughout the country.
The disease can occur in pulmonary, skin and intestinal forms. The incubation period ranges from several hours to 2-3 days. The cutaneous form is the most common. Accompanied by inflammation of the lymph nodes and the formation of a carbuncle (acute purulent-necrotic inflammation with tissue necrosis). The pulmonary form is similar in symptoms to a cold followed by pneumonia. Unlike skin disease, even with high-quality and timely treatment, death from it occurs in 50 percent of cases.
The intestinal form is considered the rarest - this is what the boy who died in Salekhard fell ill with. At an early stage it is difficult to identify - the symptoms are similar to food poisoning.
Of particular danger is the so-called generalized form of infection, in which the entire body suffers. Mortality in such cases, especially without proper treatment, reaches 90-95 percent.
What's next?
According to the head of the department of infectious diseases First Moscow State Medical University named after Sechenov, Professor Elena Volchkova, it is impossible to completely eradicate anthrax, since it is a natural focal disease, writes Medportal.ru. But the infection spreads beyond the focus extremely rarely. As for artificial reservoirs, all cattle burial grounds are under the protection of authorized government agencies. And here everything depends on responsibility officials.
There are, however, irresponsible livestock owners who, if an animal becomes ill, try to quietly slaughter it and sell it. So the human factor also plays a big role.
Professor of the Far Eastern Federal University (FEFU) and head of the virological research laboratory of the Center for Hygiene and Epidemiology in the Primorsky Territory Mikhail Shchelkanov reminds that permafrost creates ideal conditions for the preservation of anthrax. The spores are preserved for a long time in a natural refrigerator.
The outbreak of infection in Yamal was quickly contained due to the sparse population and inaccessibility of the area, which facilitated the creation of a natural quarantine. In the future, in the future, more active development and settlement of the region, and development of its infrastructure, new risks may arise. So far, the problem can only be stopped, but not solved.
12:06 — REGNUM The Yamal tundra dwellers who lost property during sanitation from anthrax will be allocated 90 million rubles from the district budget, the correspondent was told IA REGNUM in the press service of the regional governor.
These funds will be used to equip about 100 new tents for families of reindeer herders. Until the resettlement, all tundra dwellers will continue to remain in Yar-Sale under the supervision of doctors to undergo antibiotic therapy. All residents from the quarantine zone, namely 211 people, will be vaccinated. The deer population from the quarantine zone is fully vaccinated. Veterinarians report that the death of deer has stopped. The livestock of neighboring territories will be vaccinated - another 200 thousand doses of vaccine for animals will be delivered to Yamal in the coming days.
As previously reported IA REGNUM, from the 20th of July, signals began to come from the Yamal region that the reindeer were experiencing an abnormally high temperature, and mortality began. By the weekend, the most difficult situation had developed in the herds of private reindeer herders near the Tarko-Sale trading post in the Yamal region and in the reindeer herding brigade roaming nearby. Losses among deer at that time amounted to 1200 heads, today - more than 2300. Analysis of samples taken from animals showed the cause of death - anthrax spores. From July 25 in the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, by order of the governor Dmitry Kobylkin Quarantine has been introduced in the Yamal region. At first, experts assured that there was no threat to people, the tundra people were examined and no anthrax patients were found among them. Since July 22, a general practitioner has been with the reindeer herders to monitor their health. However, yesterday, August 1, it became known that a 12-year-old child had died from anthrax. “As of 5:00 on August 2, 90 people were delivered to the Salekhard Design Bureau. Of these, 54 are children,” a source in medical circles told Life.ru.
According to experts, the probable cause of infection of the deer was the site of the long-ago death of a sick animal, which was opened due to the heat. There are no cattle burial grounds in the Yamal region, but given the viability of the anthrax pathogen - 100 years or more and its resistance to temperature changes - it is assumed that deer, in search of food, stumbled upon the site of an animal that died from anthrax and then infected each other. Experts believe that the reason for the reindeer infection was an unusually warm summer for the Far North. The thawed tundra and deer weakened by heat and contact helped spread the deadly infection.
A ban has now been introduced on the export of any meat, antlers, or skins from the Yamal region. Veterinary control and inspection have been strengthened at all airports, train stations, river ports and all transport hubs of the Autonomous Okrug. There is no slaughter of deer at this time of year in Yamal, so residents and guests of the region are urged not to buy deer meat at spontaneous markets. District residents are also advised not to collect wild plants and mushrooms.
At the site of the anthrax outbreak, work is underway to eliminate dead animals. More than 200 liquidators are equipped with special equipment, their own laboratory, and special means to eliminate infection and disinfect the area. As the correspondent was told IA REGNUM in the regional Rospotrebnadzor, complete deratization covered all subject objects and housing stock in the village of Yar-Sale. 23 thousand 069 square meters have already been processed. m. Disinfection measures are carried out at the airports of Salekhard and Yar-Sale. Disinfection points for helicopters and sanitary areas have been deployed. More than 200 water studies have been conducted.
At the railway station named after. Vladimir Naka ( railway Obskaya - Bovanenkovo) a military camp has been deployed. Highly qualified employees of the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Emergency Situations, Rospotrebnadzor, and the Ministry of Agriculture of the Russian Federation have already been sent to support colleagues of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug.
Residents of Yamal are urged not to give in to provocateurs inciting panic. There is no epidemic in Yamal. Quarantine was introduced locally, and the district borders are not closed to the entry and exit of people.
Today, August 2, the Minister of Health of the Russian Federation Veronica Skvortsova flew to Salekhard, where she will hold a meeting on organizing medical care and anti-epidemic measures in connection with the anthrax outbreak in the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug. The minister will also visit the district hospital and examine the sick and personally check the organization of assistance directly at the outbreak of the disease, the Ministry of Health reports.
Let us recall that the last recorded case of an anthrax outbreak was recorded in Yamal in 1941. Since 1968, the entire territory of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug has been officially recognized as free from this infection. According to Rosselkhoznadzor, sporadic cases of anthrax disease in animals are recorded annually in Russia: two to three points unfavorable for the disease and from two to seven sick animals. From 2009 to 2014, 40 human cases of anthrax were reported in Russia, which was 43% higher than the number of cases in the previous five years. Anthrax was found in three federal districts Russia: North Caucasus - 20 cases, South - 9 cases and Siberian - 11 cases.
Illustration copyright RIA Novosti Image caption 2.3 thousand deer died from anthrax in the region
After the first outbreak of anthrax in the last 75 years, the authorities of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug will have to do a lot of work to identify old cattle burial grounds and limit access to them, says Deputy Director for scientific work Central Research Institute of Epidemiology of Rospotrebnadzor Viktor Maleev.
Anthrax caused the death of a child on Monday. The number of confirmed cases of the disease in people has already reached 20, Irina Shestakova, the chief freelance infectious disease specialist at the Ministry of Health, said on Tuesday.
According to Shestakova, eight of the 20 sick people are children. A total of 90 people who were in the outbreak of infection in the Yamal region were hospitalized, but for most of them the diagnosis was not confirmed.
The reason for hospitalization was the slightest ailment, including a runny nose and skin irritation.
“Several patients who caused us concern a few days ago, today, according to the results of the morning round, showed a stable condition with very clear positive dynamics,” Shestakova said.
Cases of the disease, as a rule, belong to families of reindeer herders. 2.3 thousand deer died from anthrax in the region.
According to local authorities, deer in search of food stumbled upon the remains of an animal that died from anthrax and then infected each other.
The authorities of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug have already begun to vaccinate both animals and families of reindeer herders. Residents from the “clean zone” living near the outbreak of the disease will be the first to receive the vaccine.
In the meantime, all people who were directly in the outbreak are receiving antibacterial drugs as part of prophylaxis, and three days after that they will be vaccinated.
BBC Russian Service talked to VictorohmMaleevth about how dangerous the outbreak of the disease is in the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug and what needs to be done now local authorities to avoid such incidents in the future.
Animal burial ground with guards
BBC: What are the reasons for the anthrax outbreak in the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug and can we say that this is some kind of extraordinary case?
Victor Maleev: Of course, it’s impossible to say that this is something outstanding, because there were more outbreaks. The main reason is that the cattle burial grounds, which were previously under permafrost, apparently thawed, and the bacteria became more active. It is usually in spore form, but here it was in vegetative form.
One of the reasons is that we may not know the location of all cattle burial grounds, and this bacterium can be stored for hundreds of years.
When there was an outbreak of the disease many years ago, the temperature was also very high. This is an animal disease, and now more than two thousand reindeer have died there.
Since there are very close people living there, they live next to the camps, that is, the sick are among them. So far, one child has died and had the intestinal form: he apparently consumed contaminated meat.
Now they are working on a very important problem - the disposal of dead animals and the creation of a new cattle burial ground for many years to come, with security so that people no longer have the opportunity to catch this bacterium.
Illustration copyright Reuters Image caption Spores and vegetative cells of the anthrax pathogen - Bacillus anthracis - under a microscopeBBC: Does this mean that Nenets reindeer herding communities are in a very vulnerable position to this and other diseases that are transmitted through animals?
V.M.: Probably, to some extent, yes. They have such a life, they communicate most closely with animals, and this has been the case for many centuries. It's probably better when people are separate, animals are separate, but this is a type of life that exists in many parts of the world. Although, of course, the children could probably be kept away.
BBC: How big is the public danger from this outbreak?Let's say, should people in Yamal who are not reindeer herders and do not live close to them be afraid of something?
V.M.: No, this infection is not transmitted this way. It is cutaneous, that is, it is transmitted through contact, only by people who interact with deer.
In this case, there is a cutaneous form, only one boy had an intestinal form, and the cutaneous form is only dangerous on contact. Since all patients with the cutaneous form are already isolated, the possibility that someone will rub closely against this skin is excluded, so the contact route of transmission is not dangerous for others.
True, we need to watch others, because we don’t know how many people interacted with deer.
Climate influence
BBC: What is the forecastAndWhen is anthrax diagnosed in humans? What does this depend on?
V.M.: The prognosis depends on the time of initiation of treatment and the form of the disease. When there were cases of bioterrorism in America, the disease spread through airborne droplets. The pulmonary form, as in cases of bioterrorism, is worse, and when it is cutaneous, it is usually believed that the mortality rate is up to 10%.
BBC: IN last time anthrax was recorded in Yamal in 1941, 75 years ago. Why does the disease return?
V.M.: Climate, climate. Climate change have a strong influence. Old cattle burial grounds: apparently, it’s just that while there was permafrost, we didn’t fully know what was there.
These places are poorly explored, and cattle burial grounds are dangerous for 100 years after burial, and now this situation has arisen with a sharp warming of the climate.
In other regions of Russia, access to cattle burial grounds is limited, they are known, they are guarded, and no activity is carried out there. But here, after all, there are nomadic places, huge spaces.
BBC: It was reported that the manufacturer of the anthrax vaccine had shipped a thousand doses to Yamal. Who is the vaccine primarily intended for?
V.M.: Now we mainly vaccinate veterinarians and livestock breeders. Now we need to be especially careful, because we don’t know: maybe some deer have already suffered mild forms of the disease, and people communicate with them.
Laboratory workers who work with bacteria also need to be vaccinated. There is a vaccine, thank God. It is not present in many other diseases.
Now the main thing is to return to the issue of these cattle burial grounds in order to limit them so that animals no longer climb there.
MOSCOW, August 3 – RIA Novosti, Larisa Zhukova. An anthrax outbreak hit the Yamalo-Nenets District for the first time in 75 years. Recently it became known about the death of a 12-year-old child. Ulcers were found in 20 people. Another 70 remain hospitalized with suspected infection, more than half of them children. RIA Novosti found out why the bacillus is dangerous, how to protect yourself from the disease, and what the authorities and local residents think about it.
Causes of the outbreak
Quarantine in the Yamal district of the district was introduced on July 25. Then it became known about the mass death of animals: more than 2 thousand deer died from anthrax. According to local residents, the media and authorities did not report what happened for about a week: “We learned all the information primarily from social networks from relatives of doctors and rescuers of the Ministry of Emergency Situations,” said Salekhard resident Galina (name changed).
“The scale of the epidemic was also influenced by the fact that at first they thought that the hot weather was to blame and the deer were dying from heatstroke. We lost a week or even a little more due to this,”
Told by local resident Ivan (name changed).
Anthrax was found in 20 Nenets. The figures were given by the chief freelance specialist of the Russian Ministry of Health for infectious diseases, Irina Shestakova.
Anthrax struck Yamal for the first time in 75 years: one dead, 20 sickIn total, more than 2.3 thousand animals died due to the outbreak of the disease. To eliminate the consequences of an anthrax outbreak in the Yamalo-Nenets autonomous region sent military specialists and aviation from the Russian Ministry of Defense.According to her, all the infected are nomadic reindeer herders who were at the epicenter of the infection outbreak in the tundra. Most of them have the cutaneous form of the disease.
This is not complete data on the number of cases, district governor Dmitry Kobylkin told RIA Novosti. According to him, it takes up to thirty days to establish an accurate diagnosis: today is only the eighth day.
In 2007, mandatory vaccination against infection was canceled: scientists did not find anthrax spores in the soil, the governor said. The situation turned out to be extraordinary: the last time there was an epidemic was in 1941. We had to ask for help from the military: “It was difficult to quickly dispose of the fallen deer on our own before they decomposed. And they were scattered over a long distance,” said Dmitry Kobylkin.
Why is the disease dangerous?
"Anthrax is quite contagious and causes large number deaths,” said Vladislav Zhemchugov, Doctor of Medical Sciences, a specialist in especially dangerous infections. - The spores of the pathogen are stored in the soil for centuries. The infection, which entered the ground along with a dead animal back in the time of Alexander the Great, remains active." According to the doctor, outbreaks of the disease occur after the activation of foci (washing of spores to the surface) during floods, excavations or melting ice, as in Yamal.
The disease occurs in different forms: skin, intestinal and pulmonary. The pulmonary form, for example, was present in the United States when envelopes with spores were sent out - this is the most severe form of infection. Almost 100% fatal without immediate medical intervention: people lose consciousness and die within a few hours of infection.
“It is easier to cure the skin form, because lymph nodes stand in the way of the bacteria: they delay the development of the disease. A sign of infection are carbuncles - ulcers with a black top. The intestinal form of anthrax causes high fever, pain in the intestines and diarrhea. The period from infection to death can amount to several hours or days,” said Vladislav Zhemchugov.
Most often, infection occurs when eating or cutting the meat of a sick animal. This is a real concern for the Nenets, since the main source of meat for many is venison: “We usually buy one or two carcasses for the season,” said local resident Ivan (not his real name). “Now we will not only not be able to buy meat, but we will also be afraid to buy fish.”
Against vaccinations
Anyone can get vaccinated against anthrax: ninety thousand doses of the vaccine have been delivered to the region. However, nomadic reindeer herders refuse to consider anthrax a real threat.
According to local media, the child who died from anthrax not only ate contaminated deer meat, but also drank its blood. “This is the traditional food of the northern peoples who live in the tundra and are deprived of food diversity. Fresh blood gives them energy,” said Andrei Podluzhnov, a veterinarian and breeder of red deer.
According to him, nomads meet civilization twice a year, when they come to sell deer for meat, and do not trust “people with big land". That is why many reindeer herders hide their livestock from recounting, vaccination and slaughter. Despite the fact that, according to the governor’s press service Yamalo-Nenets District, they managed to vaccinate 35 thousand deer, the nomads continue to hide the animals as much as possible and lead them away from meeting with rescuers and the military:
“For the peoples of the north, the deer is practically a totem animal. The entire life of a reindeer herder is centered around it. For a nomad, losing a deer means losing everything. This is their bread, home, transport. Reindeer herders do not know how to do anything else. The livestock can be reduced greatly: by about three quarters And it will be extremely difficult to restore the population. For the local population, this will be a humanitarian catastrophe,”
Andrey Podluzhnov emphasized.
There is no threat to other regions
The causative agent of anthrax can penetrate through water and dust raised from the surface of the soil from the region that is the source of infection. Despite this, experts note that the likelihood of such an infection is extremely low. In the quarantine zone, doctors recommend drinking bottled water or from underground sources. Yamal authorities also warned local residents that picking berries and mushrooms in the forest is now extremely dangerous.
As for other regions of Russia, the most likely carrier of the infection could be birds. But those birds that are now on nesting grounds in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, will fly to wintering grounds in Southeast Asia, India and Australia, Doctor of Biological Sciences, Professor of Moscow State University named after M.V. told RIA Novosti. Lomonosova Irina Boehme. According to her, the only precedent when birds hypothetically became carriers of the virus was during the bird flu epidemic, but this fact could not be proven one hundred percent.
The military burns down the housing of reindeer herders The report of the epidemic was delayed for five weeks Veronika Skvortsova became addicted to antibiotics after visiting Yamal The corpses of sick animals are left as gifts for descendants
Units of biological defense troops are being deployed to Yamal to combat the largest outbreak of anthrax, reports Ura.ru. Currently, 250 military personnel are already working in the region, burning the corpses of dead animals and the property of reindeer herders in the contaminated area. The borders of this territory are equipped with sanitary checkpoints with the condition of disinfection during passage.
At the same time, new tents for reindeer herders are being built in the clean zone. The planes of the Ministry of Emergency Situations are arriving in Salekhard, delivering rescuers and things for arranging temporary housing for the reindeer herders. They brought In addition, the planes brought 40 thousand signs warning about the danger of infection and fuel supplies for burning corpses and plagues.
Anthrax in Yamal was officially announced on July 25. On August 1, the press service of the district governor reported that the diagnosis of anthrax was confirmed in eight Yamal nomads, including three children. Later, the district government confirmed the death of a 12-year-old boy from anthrax. On August 2, 90 people were already in Yamal hospitals with suspected anthrax, including 54 children.
Anthrax bacilli. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2009
The epidemic in the region began after the death of one and a half thousand deer in the Yamal region. Scientists have determined that the cause of death of the animals was anthrax. Later, another 600 deer died in the Tazovsky region. According to the latest data, a total of 2,349 deer died from anthrax in the Yamal region, and another 4.5 thousand are in the danger zone.
Five weeks of silence
“The report on anthrax in Yamal was five weeks late,” said Nikolai Vlasov, deputy head of Rosselkhoznadzor. He criticized the actions of the Yamal authorities to prevent an anthrax outbreak. “Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug is not the poorest region, but veterinary care for animals is not good, very weak. Veterinarians learned about the anthrax epidemic five weeks after it began. Reindeer herders without reliable communications, one of them walked across the tundra for four days to notify about the emergency,” says Vlasov. The official added that everything that is now happening in the region “is similar to how an airport is protected after a terrorist attack.”
Nikolai Vlasov pointed out that the largest outbreak hides a huge danger for future generations, because it is not possible to dispose of deer corpses in a timely manner: “Now we need to burn 150 corpses a day. They will last 20-30 days before they are burned.” The situation is complicated by the fact that cattle burial grounds cannot be built in the tundra, since “in permafrost the pathogen will be like in a refrigerator.” And rapid burning of corpses is difficult due to the lack of roads, which delays the transportation of flammable materials.
Screenshot from YiuTube, 2016 The deputy head of Rosselkhoznadzor emphasized that “non-vaccination of animals is the choice of the subjects of the Federation.” In his opinion, the leadership of the region is leaving anthrax as a legacy “for future generations - all this will be preserved to no one knows how long.”
On August 2, Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova arrived in Yamal. The next day, she and Governor Dmitry Kobylkin visited the contaminated areas, where they interacted with the sick. The head of the Ministry of Health is currently undergoing antibiotic therapy. “In order for the vaccine to take effect, you need to wait a few days - this is the same incubation period, which ranges from 3 to 7 days,” explained the minister. “I didn’t have this opportunity, but when I examined the patients, I was in the correct anti-epidemic attire, with gloves, boots, a mask, and so on. Nevertheless, all doctors who work with patients are now on chemoprophylaxis.”
Contagious delicacies
Due to the anthrax outbreak in Yamal, hunting and picking mushrooms and berries are prohibited. “The infection came from the soil, so it may appear somewhere with mycelium. The danger, given the presence of pestilence fields, exists. We discussed wild plants with doctors and the authorities of the region; it is also necessary to take definitely restrictive measures. We won’t be lost without these mushrooms, but we will live with normal health,” said Vladimir Shevkoplyas, director of the veterinary department of the Russian Ministry of Agriculture. The infection can be spread by insects, birds and scavengers that eat deer that have died from the disease.
Meanwhile, experts fear that anthrax-contaminated reindeer meat from Yamal could spread throughout the country. This opinion was expressed to URA.Ru by the President of the International Counterterrorism Association, Joseph Linder.
“Today it is necessary to make every effort to ensure that the meat of deer that have contracted anthrax is not sold,” Linder is confident. - This is how it happens here - unscrupulous businessmen are ready to buy this meat for pennies, on the cheap, and then put it on sale. This life-threatening product must not be allowed to end up on store shelves and in restaurants.”
Meditations, 2006 He recalled that a huge number of deer will now be slaughtered in the anthrax outbreak zone. “We need to set up cordons, involve the forces of the FSB, the prosecutor’s office, and Rospotrebnadzor, so that contaminated meat does not leave the region. Otherwise, we risk facing a catastrophe,” warned the president of the International Counter-Terrorism Association. According to him, it is also necessary to “catch” the meat that was sold before the official outbreak in Yamal.
Lethal Weapon
The last time an anthrax outbreak was recorded in Yamal was 75 years ago. The source of this infection is domestic animals: cattle, sheep, goats, pigs. Infection can occur when caring for sick animals, slaughtering livestock, processing meat, as well as through contact with animal products (hides, skins, fur products, wool, bristles) contaminated with spores of the anthrax microbe.
Infection can also occur through soil in which spores of the anthrax pathogen persist for many years. Spores enter the skin through microtraumas; When contaminated foods are consumed, an intestinal form occurs. The high lethality of the pulmonary and intestinal forms, as well as the ability of the pathogen spores to remain viable for many years, are the reason for the use of the anthrax bacillus as a biological weapon.
William Rafti, 2003 The largest epidemic of this disease occurred in 1979 in Sverdlovsk. Since then, small outbreaks of this disease have occurred regularly. Thus, in August 2012, an outbreak of anthrax with fatal cases was recorded in the Altai Territory - in the village of Marushka and the village of Druzhba.
In August 2010, an anthrax outbreak was recorded in the Tyukalinsky district of the Omsk region. The epidemic began with the death of horses on a private farm, which the owners did not report. The dead animals were not even properly buried. As a result, at least six people fell ill, at least one of whom, 49-year-old Alexander Lopatin, died.
Another causative agent of deadly epidemics that regularly reminds of its presence is the plague. On July 12, a ten-year-old boy with bubonic plague was taken to the hospital in the Kosh-Agach district of the Altai Republic. The child was admitted to the infectious diseases department of the district hospital with a temperature of about 40 degrees. The boy was cured. Experts found that he had contact with 17 people, including six children. All of them were placed in isolation, but fortunately none of them got sick. Health workers suggested that the boy could have contracted the plague while camping in the mountains. It is noted that in the region the disease was recorded in marmots.
Bubonic plague is an infectious disease that has killed more people in history human lives than all other diseases combined. Despite all the advances in medicine, it is impossible to completely get rid of the plague, since the causative agent of the disease - the bacterium Yersinia pestis - lives in natural reservoirs, where it infects its main carriers - marmots, gophers and other rodents. These reservoirs exist all over the world and destroying them all is unrealistic.
The woodchuck is a carrier of plague. ablasko, 2012 How smallpox was defeated
In addition, rumors of smallpox cases regularly arise in Russia, although the World Health Organization has officially declared the disease eradicated. However, rumors, as a rule, are not confirmed, and one of the last outbreaks of smallpox was recorded in Moscow in the fifties of the last century. He talks about her:
I got vaccinated today at clinic 13 (it was moved from Neglinnaya to Trubnaya St., 19с1, by the way, a long time ago). While they were waiting for my sister, the doctor, an elderly but cheerful, clear-eyed aunt, told a story about the smallpox epidemic in Moscow in the 50s.
I found it on Wiki and am posting it here:
In the winter of 1959 we found ourselves in a bad situation. Moscow artist Kokorekin visited India. He happened to be present at the burning of a deceased Brahmin. Having gained impressions and gifts for his mistress and wife, he returned to Moscow a day earlier than his wife was waiting for him. He spent this day with his mistress, to whom he gave gifts and in whose arms he spent the night, not without pleasure. Having timed the plane's arrival from Delhi, he arrived home the next day. After giving the gifts to his wife, he felt bad, his temperature rose, his wife called “ Ambulance"and he was taken to the infectious diseases department of the Botkin hospital.
The senior surgeon on duty, Alexey Akimovich Vasiliev, in whose team I was on duty that day, was called for a consultation in the infectious diseases department with Kokorekin, regarding the imposition of a tracheostomy on him due to breathing problems. Vasilyev, having examined the patient, decided that there was no need to apply a tracheostomy and went to the emergency room. By morning the patient became ill and died.
The pathologist who performed the autopsy invited the head of the department, Academician Nikolai Aleksandrovich Kraevsky, into the dissecting room. An old pathologist from Leningrad came to visit Nikolai Alexandrovich and was invited to the dissecting table. The old man looked at the corpse and said, “Yes, my friend, variola vera is black smallpox.” The old man was right.
They reported to Shabanov. The machine of Soviet health care began to spin. They imposed a quarantine on the infectious diseases department, and the KGB began tracing Kokorekin’s contacts. The story of his early arrival in Moscow and a night of bliss with his mistress was revealed. As it turned out, the wife and mistress behaved in the same way - both ran to thrift stores to hand over gifts. There were several cases of smallpox in Moscow that ended in death. The hospital was quarantined, and it was decided to vaccinate the entire population of Moscow with smallpox vaccine.
There was no vaccine in Moscow, but it was available Far East. The weather was bad and no planes were flying. Finally the vaccine arrived and vaccinations began. I suffered it very hard, I did not have immunity against smallpox, although I was vaccinated in 1952, when an epidemic of smallpox began in Tajikistan, brought from Afghanistan in the traditional way - carpets were thrown across the border on which patients with smallpox lay.
Update: I found the details here. It turns out that the ill-fated Kokorekin was present not only at the burning of the Brahmin, who definitely died of smallpox, but also the Brahmin’s hut. And I thought - how did he manage to get infected, how? After all, before burning the body is wrapped in several layers of cloth, and the high temperature of the fire should have killed all the vibrios. But vibrio is “resistant to the effects external environment, especially to drying and low temperatures. He can long time, for a number of months, persist in crusts and scales taken from pockmarks on the skin of patients” (wiki). In that hut there were millions of flakes of skin and dust with vibrios - that’s how I became infected.
And it was after this incident and thanks to the USSR that they adopted a program to eradicate smallpox throughout the world. In the wild forests of India, tribes were shown photographs of people suffering from smallpox. So they got rid of it!
