An outbreak of bubonic plague in Altai. How to save yourself? What to read in print media Epidemic of bubonic plague in Altai

Reference: Kosh-Agach district is the southernmost district of the Altai Republic, bordering Mongolia, China and Kazakhstan. A popular place among lovers of active tourism - numerous recreation centers are located 800–900 km from Novosibirsk along the Chuisky tract.

In Altai, in the Kosh-Agach region, a 10-year-old boy contracted one of the most terrible diseases in the history of mankind - bubonic plague. The information was confirmed by the Office of Rospotrebnadzor for the Republic of Altai and the Kosh-Agach Central District Hospital. On Wednesday, July 13, a 10-year-old boy Ezen with a temperature of 39.6 was brought to the hospital from the small (800 inhabitants) village of Mukhor-Tarhata in the Mountain Altai. The child was immediately placed in the infectious disease department and took all the necessary tests. Doctors' fears were confirmed:

As explained in the Office of Rospotrebnadzor in the Republic of Altai, the plague infection penetrates the lymph nodes, they increase, turning into large scary bumps-buboes on the body - hence the name "bubonic plague". An infection kills a healthy person in a few days. In this case, the first symptoms of the disease may not appear immediately, but within the next two days after infection. Patients first feel severe chills, a rapid rise in temperature to 38–40 degrees, a sharp headache, dizziness, which are later accompanied by impaired consciousness, insomnia, delirium, and sometimes vomiting. With timely treatment, the probability of death of the patient is reduced to 5-10%.

In the case of the boy Ezen, everything was done promptly - now there is no threat to the child's life, the doctors are sure. According to the Rospotrebnadzor,

The child was infected while visiting his grandmother. The grandfather called his grandson to help butcher the caught marmots, and the infected blood of the animal entered the body through a wound in the palm of his hand.

According to the press center of the government of the Republic of Altai, plague-infected fleas have been living on marmots and other rodents in the Kosh-Agach region since the 1950s - although they have been poisoned countless times during this time. In the last few years, the situation has aggravated due to the fact that in neighboring Mongolia there is an epidemic of plague among wild rodents, and, as a result, the percentage of sick animals in the border southern territories of the Altai Republic is growing. People here become infected with the plague according to the same pattern - either while hunting for marmots, or by negligence they injure their fingers while removing the skins from the animals.

Residents of Kosh-Agach told an NGS.NOVOSTI correspondent that the locals did not want to give up dangerous fishing. “Everyone has fun catching them. In addition, marmot meat is eaten. It's just that some people here don't have money for food. That is why they catch them so as not to starve,” says a local resident Zhanerke. “Marmot meat, they say, is very soft and tasty, and marmot fat is used to treat severe coughs and bronchitis,” Togzhan echoes her. “Marmots are not caught in the village, but go to the mountains, where people do not live. Skins are torn off, trimmed, and then hats, vests for the winter, jackets are sewn. They themselves wear and sell, as a rule, on the way to the Chike-Taman pass, ”adds their fellow villager Esbergen.

As reported on Friday, July 15, by the press service of the Russian Ministry of Health, in the villages of Kosh-Agach and Mukhor-Tarhata, continuous deratization will begin in the coming days - i.e. total persecution of marmots and other wild rodents.

According to Khanbarbek Uvalinov, the owner of the Kosh-Agach recreation center Tulpar, every fifth vacationer is from Novosibirsk. A weekly stay in a house for four at this recreation center costs 14 thousand rubles, but Mr. Uvalinov is sure that the price will not be reduced, since the outbreak of the plague has nothing to do with tourists. “It is the marmots that carry the plague in our country. But the nearest groundhogs live 50 km from the base, and they themselves never go out to people. Hunting for marmots is banned in the republic, but some locals love marmot meat so much that they still catch them. You just don’t have to do it,” the businessman believes.

The fact that the “Altai bubonic plague” is not terrible for a careful tourist was also confirmed to the author by the Novosibirsk traveler Viktor Borzenko: “This time we went to Dzhazator, there is a mountain-taiga area, unlike the Chuya steppe in Kosh-Agach, and no one didn't pick it up there. [Judging by] past trips, this problem was irrelevant for tourists - mainly for local residents.”

An infectious disease doctor of the highest category, deputy chief physician of the city infectious diseases hospital No. 1, Larisa Vovney, says that plague has not been recorded in the Novosibirsk Region for many decades.

“Currently, there is no incidence of plague in developed countries, so the main preventive measures are aimed at preventing the importation of the pathogen from epidemiologically dangerous regions and sanitation of natural foci,” the specialist clarifies. The doctor advises everyone who goes on vacation to Altai to observe personal hygiene and avoid contact with rodents and camels. And also use prophylactic insect bites and eat benign foods.

Andrey Tkachuk

Photo by Astrid Gast (Essentials/iStock)

Alarming news came on Wednesday from the Republic of Altai. In a ten-year-old boy, local doctors revealed an extremely dangerous disease - bubonic plague. It is reported that the child was taken to the infectious diseases department of the district hospital with a temperature of about 40 degrees. Doctors say that his condition is assessed as moderate. At the same time, the boy's parents and brother are under constant medical supervision, but so far no signs of infection have been found in them.

Health officials believe that the boy could have contracted the plague in the mountains because he had not been vaccinated. Earlier in the region, the disease was recorded in marmots. About how great the risk of contracting the plague is today, how dangerous this disease is and how it is treated, Gazeta.Ru decided to talk with Russia's chief infectious disease specialist.

What or who causes plague and how is it transmitted?

This disease is caused by a bacterium called Yersinia pestis (plague bacillus). Plague is usually spread from rodent to rodent by fleas. But in some cases it can also be airborne if it hits the lungs of the animal. But usually the process looks like this: from a sick rodent, a blood-sucking flea jumps onto a healthy one, bites it and infects it. A person becomes ill in the following way. Either a hungry flea does not find a suitable groundhog and bites you, or you will hunt a groundhog, shoot a sick one (and a healthy one will not let you in), and his fleas will jump on you when cutting. Or your blood will come into contact with his blood through a microtrauma.

“But it is believed that the plague is finally defeated ...

- This is stupidity, in general we have a lot of stupid beliefs in society.

The plague has gone nowhere, it exists, and people get sick with it all the time.

Thousands of cases in the world occur every year, and given that somewhere in Papuan under baobabs they are not recorded, there are much more such incidents than we think. The plague was, is and will be, nothing can be done about it. Incidents related to it are noted regularly in China and Madagascar. There is always the possibility of its importation to us, it is impossible to prevent.

In Russia, there are natural foci of this disease that cannot be destroyed in any way. There is nothing wrong with this, we are well aware of this. Hunting for marmots in Altai, by the way, is prohibited for this reason. But we know that if it is forbidden, then it is necessary to violate it.

- How big is the risk of a widespread plague epidemic, as it was in the Middle Ages?

- None. The plague is highly demonized in our public consciousness. We even swear like this: “go crazy”, “a plague on your head” and so on. In reality, such a disease exists, it is unpleasant, severe. But

we have learned how to treat her, and this boy should, if all proper measures are taken, get well, and no one else should get sick. Bubonic plague is not contagious at all.

If the boy does not have complications in the form of pneumonic plague, then no one risks anything. Another thing is that I'm talking while sitting in Moscow and not knowing exactly what is there in Altai. If it is a purely bubonic form and is adequately treated, then everything should be fine.

- And how does the pulmonary form arise?

- Conventionally, if the patient is not treated, then we will get a secondary, pulmonary form. And those who are around will already receive in the form of a primary pulmonary form. This is in a very bad scenario. The last time it was in 1911 during the plague in Manchuria. A little time has passed since then, and we have learned to treat her a little better.

How is plague treated now?

- Special medicines, antibiotics. The therapy of this disease has been fine-tuned to the finest; there is a stable world practice in this respect. We have little practical experience here, since Russia has not had its own plague for a very long time. But every year the staff of every medical institution, even an ordinary polyclinic in some Uryupinsk, must work out actions during an epidemic of especially dangerous infections, that is, plague and cholera. We are constantly ready for this, because we know that we are sitting on a dynamite box, we have pockets of this disease. Once this hearth "shot" - the boy ran into it.

— And where are the natural foci of the disease?

- This is the Trans-Baikal Territory, the border with China and Mongolia.

You will not do anything with the natural hearth. After all, groundhogs get sick. It will not be possible to vaccinate all of them with all the desire.

Of course, it is possible to kill all the marmots, but only after that there will be such an ecological catastrophe that it will not seem enough to you. Since there is a natural focus, there is always a risk of disease. We are saved by the fact that where there are natural foci, we do not have people, there the population density is one person per 100 square meters. In general, journalists and all sorts of experts like to scare us: sometimes we can die en masse from Ebola, sometimes from the Zika virus. We are dying all the time and will never die again.

By the way, there are diseases much worse, for example, hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome. This is an extremely aggressive strain, the treatment of the disease is not very well developed. If I, as a professional, an infectious disease professor, were offered the choice of these two diseases, I would choose the plague. I know I'll be fine with antibiotics. But in the case of this fever - I'm not sure. It’s just that we know about the plague, but not about other infections. And it's good that they don't know. In many knowledge - many sorrows.

- The French writer Camus in 1947 described the plague epidemic in Algeria, during which half of the population of Oran was mowed down. Is it possible to repeat such events anywhere now?

- It's absolutely unrealistic. Remember how in 2014 Obama shouted that the main threat to the world is Ebola? So it cannot, in principle, go beyond the border of the Horn of Africa for a number of reasons. Any infection develops according to a certain logic, which is calculated quite easily. Even if you spread this or that disease in the form of a biological weapon, this trick will not work. The Japanese tried to use it in 1945 and the Americans in 1953, and nothing good came of it for them. The effect of this weapon of mass destruction is greatly exaggerated.

On July 12, a 10-year-old boy was brought to the central hospital of the Kosh-Agachsky district of the Altai Republic with a temperature of over forty and sharp pains in the abdomen. Analysis showed that he had bubonic plague. Information confirmed Rospotrebnadzor.

Most likely, the student caught a terrible disease by eating groundhog meat. They say that before the incident, his grandfather, a hunter, butchered a plague marmot in a parking lot in the mountains. At the same time, hunting for marmots is officially prohibited in the republic, since these animals are the main carriers of the plague.

Now the boy is in the infectious ward, his condition is assessed as moderate. Together with him, another 17 people were officially quarantined, including preschool children. According to a local hospital employee named Nazikesh, they are all relatives among themselves, they all ate marmots. They are also being tested now.

In 2014 and 2015, there were two confirmed cases of bubonic plague in Altai. Inhabitant of Kosh-Agach Nurdana Mausumkanova said that in the village of Mukhor-Tarhata, from where an infected boy was brought to the Central District Hospital, many people hunt and eat marmots:

We are already accustomed to hearing that someone has contracted the plague there. Nothing surprising. But today (July 13), at about 18.30, a local therapist came to us and said to urgently vaccinate against the plague. You need to come to the hospital tomorrow or they will even come to the house. The doctor said that there were already 50 people in quarantine and the infectious diseases department was overcrowded.

Olga Eremeeva also lives in this village and every year in the fall he is vaccinated against the plague:

I never eat woodchucks precisely because I'm afraid of catching the plague.

Despite the fact that local residents do not panic and perceive what happened as an ordinary event, tourists who are now in the Kosh-Agach region are very worried. We phoned the chief infectious disease specialist of the Altai Territory Valery Shevchenko and asked whether vacationers should be afraid of the plague.

The main carriers of plague in the Kosh-Agach region are marmots. Therefore, tourists should remember that it is life-threatening to contact with these animals, butcher them and eat them! If you just visit the territory of the Kosh-Agach region, admire nature, there is no danger.

Valery Vladimirovich also advises to be attentive to the food that can be served in a dangerous area:

Even for reasons of routine prevention of other infections!

Important!

According to Rospotrebnadzor, a ban on marmot hunting has been introduced in the Altai Republic, 6,000 people have been vaccinated against the plague, mass deratization of settlements has been carried out, the entire Kosh-Agachsky district is littered with leaflets on plague prevention, children in schools wrote essays about the plague. It would seem that both old and young are well aware of the danger of contact with marmots, but ... poaching for the marmot continues!

By the way

How is this infection being treated now?

The plague covered mankind three times with a black wave. The first happened in the second half of the 6th century AD, then in the middle of the 16th century - the infamous Black Death, which decimated two-thirds of the population of Europe. The last wave began in China in the second half of the 19th century and claimed millions of lives in Asia.

And so far, the bubonic plague (as it was called because, with the development of the disease, the lymph nodes swell - buboes appear) has not been completely and irrevocably defeated. This infection periodically flares up in different parts of the globe - either in Madagascar or in Kyrgyzstan. Now here in Altai. Will this case mark the beginning of a new epidemic of black death? After all, it is already known that the sick child was in contact with almost two dozen people who have already been urgently placed in isolation.

Just don’t demonize the plague, warns the chief infectious disease specialist of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation Vladimir Nikiforov. - Our fear is just a legacy of the Middle Ages, when nothing was known about this infection. Today, the plague is well treated, with the most common antibiotics. This is a bacterial infection for which antibiotics are available. With adequate and competent therapy, a complete recovery occurs.

The most important thing is to diagnose bubonic plague in time, before it passes into the pulmonary form, and this can happen within a day. If this happens, then the patient becomes contagious to others. The bubonic form of the plague, which has so far been diagnosed in a child, is transmitted only from animal to human.

There are no difficulties with diagnosing bubonic plague, - Vladimir Nikiforov is sure. - All doctors are well aware of the symptoms of especially dangerous infections. Laboratory bacteriological analysis is necessary to confirm this diagnosis. The therapy for the plague has long been worked out, so there is no need for any panic, the epidemic does not threaten us. Nothing extraordinary has happened yet. Since there are natural foci of infection, it means that there will be cases of infection from time to time. Although I don’t remember the last time there was a plague in Russia.

Today there is a vaccine against bubonic plague, but, according to the chief infectious disease specialist, it is not one hundred percent effective. Yes, and it is used according to epidemiological indications (that is, in areas where infections often occur) and only among adults engaged in fishing related to hunting, processing the skins of wild animals.

Medieval plague that wiped out half the world broke out in Altai. A ten-year-old child was hospitalized there with a diagnosis of bubonic plague. Its first symptoms are similar to those of a common respiratory infection: chills, rapid temperature rise to 38-40 C, severe headache, dizziness. The diagnosis was confirmed by laboratory. A ten-year-old child diagnosed with bubonic plague was taken to a hospital in the Kosh-Agach district. A boy hospitalized with a temperature of about 40 degrees could have contracted the plague in the mountains because he had not been vaccinated. Earlier in the region, bubonic plague, a particularly dangerous infectious disease, was recorded in marmots, writes "Independent newspaper". According to the preliminary version of epidemiologists, the child could have become infected in the mountain camp, when, together with his grandfather, he butchered the carcass of a caught marmot. In the Republic for the third year there has been an increase in the incidence of bubonic plague among animals. Local authorities have banned the hunting of marmots and other rodents, which are the main carriers of infection. Moreover, in neighboring Mongolia there are already cases of people dying from the plague. But the residents neglect the prohibitions: hunting the tarbagan marmot is a traditional craft of the local population, from which the local shepherds and hunters will not refuse even under fear of the "black death". It was the bubonic plague that was popularly called by the people precisely because it disfigures the bodies of the dead - their faces and hands become simply black. Its first symptoms are similar to those of a common respiratory infection: chills, rapid temperature rise to 38-40 C, severe headache, dizziness. Later, a mental disorder appears - a state of anxiety, arousal, and only on the second day, inflammation of the lymph nodes characteristic of the bubonic form - the so-called "buboes", which, breaking through, form ulcers. The schoolboy came to the village of Mukhor-Tarhata from Kosh-Agach to visit his grandparents for the holidays. “The diagnosis of bubonic plague was confirmed by laboratory. The child has been placed in isolation and is receiving the necessary treatment. Doctors assess the boy's condition as stable," she said. "Rossiyskaya Gazeta" Marina Bugreeva (), head of the organizational department of the Rospotrebnadzor for the Republic of Altai (). In 2014 and 2015, there were two confirmed cases of bubonic plague infection in Altai. Despite the fact that local residents do not panic and perceive what happened as an ordinary event, tourists who are now in the Kosh-Agach region are very worried. The plague covered mankind three times with a black wave. The first happened in the second half of the 6th century AD, then in the middle of the 16th century - the infamous Black Death, which wiped out two-thirds of the population of Europe. The last wave began in China in the second half of the 19th century and claimed millions of lives in Asia, recalls "TVNZ". And so far, the bubonic plague has not been defeated completely and irrevocably (

The natural focus of the plague in the Altai Mountains, where a child was infected last summer, has existed for many decades, but in 2012 a more dangerous form of this disease came here from Mongolia, head of the republic's Rospotrebnadzor Leonid Shchuchinov said at a meeting in the regional government.

The high-mountain focus of plague in the Kosh-Agach region is the most active of 11 natural foci of this infection in Russia. Here, from 2012 to 2016, 83 strains of the main subspecies were isolated: 1 strain in 2012, 2 in 2014, 17 in 2015, 65 strains in 2016.

“The trouble is that in 2012 a new, especially virulent plague pathogen from Mongolia passed to us, to our “peaceful” Gorno-Altai natural focus,” said Shuchinov. Plague in Altai: where tourists should not go

He added that the forecast of the situation for 2017, prepared on the basis of annual reviews against the background of the development of epizootics in the gray marmot settlements, suggests that the epidemiological situation in the natural focus of the plague in Gorny Altai will be difficult.

“Accounting work showed that in the area where cases of human disease were localized, the groundhog practically died out from the same plague, and in the sectors where the greatest epizootic activity was manifested, now its numbers are extremely low or it is absent. At the same time, the population in the border areas is quite high. In addition, most of the outbreak is located in Mongolia, and, perhaps, our outbreak is somehow fed from there, ”the press service of the government quotes the director of the Irkutsk Research Anti-Plague Institute of Siberia and the Far East, Sergei Balakhonov.

the main problem

The scientist clarified that it is still not completely possible to convince the local population of the danger, some people, according to the centuries-old tradition, still catch and eat marmots, the main carriers of a dangerous infection. They ignore the ban on marmot hunting introduced last year by the head of the republic, this is also confirmed by raids during which fresh skins, carcasses, and fishing gear are found. Longevity vaccine to be given to Americans

Specialists stressed that the specificity of high-altitude natural plague foci is such that it is almost impossible to quickly achieve their recovery - this is shown by many years of experience of specialists in Mongolia and other similar foci.

We are talking about minimizing the risks, the possibility of spreading infection among people. For this, a comprehensive plan for the gradual improvement of the focus has been developed. In particular, this is a general vaccination of the population of the region, starting from the age of two, as well as everyone who comes here on long business trips, to visit or on vacation. Camels are also vaccinated without exception.

In July 2016, a 10-year-old boy from the village of Mukhor-Tarhata was infected with bubonic plague in the Altai Republic. He was not vaccinated and came to the shepherd's camp to visit. The child became infected while helping his grandfather to remove the skin from the caught marmot.

The child was hospitalized and everyone in contact with him was quarantined. In the area, raids began on the parking lots, the population was explained why it is dangerous to hunt these animals. In addition, there is a ban on marmot hunting in the region to avoid the spread of the disease.