Bubonic plague in the Altai region. Bubonic plague outbreak in Altai

Emergency anti-epidemiological measures are being carried out in an area popular with tourists.

Altai doctors reported that a ten-year-old child was hospitalized in the district hospital of the Kosh-Agach region - he was diagnosed with bubonic plague. 17 people who had contact with the boy were quarantined.

The Kosh-Agach region of the Altai Republic is popular among tourists - recreation centers are located there and there are many routes to attractions.

The child was brought to the hospital on July 12 with a temperature in the forties. His condition is assessed as moderately severe. Everyone who had contact with the boy was isolated (among these 17 people there were six children).

In a conversation with TASS, local doctors suggested that the child could have contracted the plague at a mountain site, and the carrier of the disease was a marmot: the plague is transmitted to people, for example, by a flea bite from a sick animal. The plague “lives” in natural foci where gerbils, gophers, marmots, and voles live. By the way, camels become infected with the plague - and when cutting up a carcass or processing the skin, a person can also get sick.

Currently, about two and a half thousand cases of the disease are recorded in the world per year. We did not find any mention of the diagnosis “bubonic plague”, which would have been made in Russia in recent years - they write about cases that were recorded at the latest in the late 70s.

Bubonic plague can be treated with antibiotics; the main thing is to make a timely diagnosis.

Anti-plague vaccinations are now being carried out in Kosh-Agach (their effectiveness is 70%), rodents have begun to be exterminated in local villages, and children are being removed from livestock breeders' camps.

Tourists are in a special risk zone - it is more difficult to control their condition than that of indigenous residents, since with an incubation period of 2-3 days, the sick person may well return to their homeland and only there will feel a deterioration in their condition.

After a 10-year-old child became infected with the plague, all residents of the Kosh-Agach region will be vaccinated against this terrible disease. The press service of the Russian Ministry of Health reported that the relatives of the injured child are in quarantine. According to doctors, they showed no symptoms of plague.

Let us note that the Gorno-Altai natural plague center includes the territory between the Saylyugem, Chikhacheva, Kuraisky, North-Chuysky, and South-Chuysky ridges surrounding the Chuya steppe. It also includes the steppe (southeastern) part of the Ukok plateau. The area enzootic for plague is located at an altitude of 1875-2530 m above sea level on the slopes of the ridges surrounding the Chui steppe. For 2016, the budget of the Altai Territory is planned for revenues of 68,166 million rubles, for expenses of 72,270 million rubles.

Doctors reported that the boy’s condition was moderate; the child’s temperature was about 40 degrees. Experts carried out final disinfection at the place of residence. The child's parents and sibling are under continuous medical supervision; no symptoms of infection were detected in them. The sick child was not vaccinated against plague. The child accidentally became infected while cutting up a gopher.

It is known that the vaccine can only be used on adults involved in fishing related to hunting and processing of animal skins.

According to the department's data, no outbreaks of plague have been recorded on the territory of the Altai Territory, no episodes of plague have been registered among the population of the Altai Territory, and there is no danger of infection in the territory of the region.

Earlier, on July 13, a meeting of the Republican Sanitary and Anti-Epidemic Commission was held on the topic: strengthening preventive measures in the natural focus of the plague in the Kosh-Agach region. With the plague suspected, it was decided to carry out mass vaccination of the entire population, except for children under 2 years of age.

Let us remind you that in the Kosh-Agach region of the Altai Republic, which is used as a tourist and recreational zone, in 2014-2016 cases of bubonic plague were recorded among the population associated with catching, cutting and eating marmots - the main carriers of the plague. This species of rodent lives mainly in Mongolia and is distributed in the adjacent territories of the Altai Republic (this species of marmot does not live in the Altai Territory). Currently, the Decree of the Head of the Altai Republic A.V. is in force on the territory of the republic. Berdnikov on the ban on hunting marmots.

Experts say that staying on the territory of a natural outbreak of plague generally does not pose a danger, but if you come into contact with marmots and eat them in this case, there is a danger of contracting the plague.

Note that bubonic plague is a serious infectious disease that occurs in an extremely acute form. The main carriers of bubonic plague are rodents. A person becomes infected through bites from infected insects or direct contact with infected animals.

Doctors reported that the plague can destroy a healthy person in a number of days and even hours. After the infection enters the body, it may take from several hours to a couple of days for the first symptoms to appear.

A person infected with bubonic plague does not pose a danger to others until the bubo is opened. The number of victims of the so-called “second pandemic” (during which the plague spread, as a rule, in the bubonic form) is estimated at at least 60 million people.

Doctors recommend that when a person shows the first signs of infection, the patient should be immediately isolated and not allowed to come into contact with healthy people. People who have been in contact with the patient are subject to temporary isolation with medical observation. It is mandatory to take measures to disinfect the place where the patient lives. Vaccination is carried out if necessary.

The medieval plague, which 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 a common respiratory infection: chills, rapid rise in temperature to 38-40 C, severe headache, dizziness. The diagnosis was confirmed by laboratory tests. A ten-year-old child diagnosed with bubonic plague was taken to the hospital in the Kosh-Agach district. The boy, hospitalized with a temperature of about 40 degrees, could have contracted the plague in the mountains because he was not 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 at a mountain site when, together with his grandfather, he was cutting up the carcass of a caught marmot. In the republic, the incidence of bubonic plague among animals has been on the rise for three years. Local authorities have banned hunting for marmots and other rodents, which are the main carriers of the disease. Moreover, in neighboring Mongolia there are already cases of death from the plague. But the residents ignore the prohibitions: hunting the tarbagan marmot is a traditional trade of the local population, which local shepherds and hunters will not give up even under pain of the “Black Death”. It was the bubonic plague that was popularly called that way because it disfigures the bodies of the dead - their faces and hands become simply black. Its first symptoms are similar to a common respiratory infection: chills, rapid rise in temperature to 38-40 C, severe headache, dizziness. Later, a mental disorder appears - a state of anxiety, excitement, and only on the second day the inflammation of the lymph nodes characteristic of the bubonic form - the so-called “buboes”, which, when breaking through, form ulcers. A schoolboy came to the village of Mukhor-Tarkhata from Kosh-Agach to visit his grandparents for the holidays. “The diagnosis of bubonic plague was confirmed by laboratory tests. The child is placed in an isolation ward and receives the necessary treatment. Doctors assess the boy’s condition as stable,” she said. "Rossiyskaya Gazeta" Head of the organizational department of the Rospotrebnadzor department for the Altai Republic Marina Bugreeva ().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 currently in the Kosh-Agach region are very concerned. The plague covered humanity three times like a black wave. The first happened in the second half of the 6th century AD, then in the mid-16th century - the infamous Black Death, which wiped out two-thirds of the population of Europe. The latest 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 (

Alarming news arrived on Wednesday from the Altai Republic. Local doctors diagnosed a ten-year-old boy with 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 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.

Medical workers believe that the boy could have contracted the plague while camping in the mountains because he was not vaccinated. Previously, the disease was recorded in marmots in the region. Gazeta.Ru decided to talk with the chief infectious disease specialist in Russia about how great the risk of contracting the plague is these days, how dangerous this disease is and how it is treated.

—What or who causes the plague and how is it transmitted?

— This disease is caused by a bacterium called Yersinia pestis (plague bacillus). Plague usually spreads from rodent to rodent through fleas. But in some cases it can also be by airborne droplets if it affects the animal’s lungs. But usually the process looks like this: a flea that has sucked blood from a sick rodent jumps onto a healthy one, bites him and infects him. A person gets sick in the following way. Either a hungry flea does not find a suitable marmot and bites you, or you will hunt a marmot, shoot the sick one (and the healthy one will not let you near him), and when butchering him his fleas will jump on you. Or your blood will come into contact with his blood through microtrauma.

- But it is believed that the plague has been finally defeated...

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

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

Thousands of cases occur in the world every year, and given that somewhere in Papuacia they are not recorded under baobab trees, there are many more such incidents than we think. The plague was, is and will be, nothing can be done about it. Incidents related to it occur regularly in China and Madagascar. There is always the possibility of it being brought to us; this cannot be prevented.

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

— How great is the risk of a widespread plague epidemic, as was the case in the Middle Ages?

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

we have learned to treat it, and this boy should, if all appropriate measures are taken, recover, 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 am talking about this while sitting in Moscow and not knowing exactly what is there in Altai. If the form is purely bubonic and is adequately treated, then everything should be fine.

— How does the pulmonary form arise?

— Conditionally this: if the patient is not treated, then we will get a secondary, pulmonary form. And those around will already receive the primary pulmonary form. This is in a very bad situation. The last time was in 1911 during the plague epidemic in Manchuria. A little time has passed since then, and we have learned to treat her a little better.

— How is the plague treated now?

- Special medications, antibiotics. Therapy for this disease has been fine-tuned to the finest detail; there is a stable world practice in this regard. 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 clinic in some Uryupinsk, necessarily practice actions in case of an epidemic of especially dangerous infections, that is, plague and cholera. We are constantly prepared for this, because we know that we are sitting on a box of dynamite, we have pockets of this disease. Once this hearth “shot” - the boy ran into it.

— Where are the natural foci of the disease?

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

You can't do anything with a natural hearth. After all, marmots get sick. It will not be possible to vaccinate all of them, no matter how much you want.

Of course, it is possible to kill all the marmots, but only after that there will be such an environmental disaster that you will not think enough. Since there is a natural focus, there is always a risk of disease. What saves us is that where there are natural hotspots, we don’t have people; the population density there is one person per 100 square meters. In general, journalists and all sorts of experts like to scare us: either we could die en masse from Ebola, or from the Zika virus. We are dying all the time and will never die again.

By the way, there are diseases that are 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, professor of infectious diseases, were offered these two diseases to choose from, I would choose the plague. I know that I will be cured normally 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 knowledges there are many sorrows.

— The French writer Camus in 1947 described the plague epidemic in Algeria, during which half the population of Oran was wiped out. Is it possible for similar events to repeat anywhere now?

- This is absolutely unrealistic. Remember how in 2014 Obama shouted that the main threat to the world was Ebola? So, in principle, it cannot 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 useful came of it for them. The effect of these weapons of mass destruction has been greatly exaggerated.

On July 12, a 10-year-old boy was brought to the central hospital of the Kosh-Agach district of the Altai Republic with a temperature of about forty and sharp abdominal pain. The test showed that he had bubonic plague. Information confirmed Rospotrebnadzor.

Most likely, the schoolboy contracted a terrible disease after eating marmot meat. They say that before the incident, his hunter grandfather was butchering a plague-ridden marmot at a campsite in the mountains. At the same time, hunting for marmots is officially prohibited in the republic, since these animals are the main carriers of plague.

Now the boy is in the infectious diseases department, his condition is assessed as moderate. Together with him, 17 more people were officially quarantined, including preschool children. According to a local hospital employee named Nazikesh, they are all related to each other, they all ate marmots. Now they are also taking tests.

In 2014 and 2015, there were two confirmed cases of bubonic plague in Altai. Resident of Kosh-Agach Nurdana Mausumkanova said that in the village of Mukhor-Tarkhata, from where the infected boy was brought to the central district hospital, many people hunt and eat marmots:

We are already accustomed to hearing that someone there was infected with the plague. Nothing surprising. But today (July 13) at about 18.30 a local therapist came to us and told us to urgently get vaccinated against the plague. You need to come to the hospital tomorrow or they will even come to your home. The doctor said that there seem to be 50 people already in quarantine and the infectious diseases department is overcrowded.

Olga Eremeeva also lives in this village and gets vaccinated against the plague every fall:

I never eat marmots precisely because I am afraid of contracting the plague.

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

The main carriers of plague in the Kosh-Agach region are marmots. Therefore, tourists should remember that contact with these animals, cutting them up and eating them is life-threatening! If you are simply visiting the territory of the Kosh-Agach region and admiring nature, there is no danger.

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

Even for reasons of routine prevention of other infections!

Important!

According to Rospotrebnadzor, a ban on marmot hunting was introduced in the Altai Republic, 6,000 people were vaccinated against the plague, mass deratization of populated areas was carried out, the entire Kosh-Agach region was littered with leaflets on plague prevention, children in schools wrote essays about the plague. It would seem that both young and old are well aware of the dangers of contact with marmots, but... the poaching of the marmot continues!

By the way

How is this infection treated now?

The plague covered humanity three times like a black wave. The first happened in the second half of the 6th century AD, then in the mid-16th century - the infamous Black Death, which wiped out two-thirds of the population of Europe. The latest 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 (so it was called because as the disease progresses, the lymph nodes swell - buboes appear) has not been defeated completely and irrevocably. This infection periodically flares up in different parts of the globe - either in Madagascar or in Kyrgyzstan. Now here in Altai. Will this incident mark the beginning of a new epidemic of the Black Death? After all, it is already known that the sick child had contact with almost two dozen people who were already urgently placed in isolation.

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

The most important thing is to diagnose bubonic plague in time, before it turns into a pneumonic form, and this can happen within 24 hours. If this happens, the patient becomes infectious to others. The bubonic form of plague, which has so far been diagnosed in the child, is transmitted only from animals to humans.

There are no difficulties in diagnosing bubonic plague, says Vladimir Nikiforov. - All doctors are well aware of the symptoms of particularly dangerous infections. To confirm this diagnosis, laboratory bacteriological analysis is necessary. The therapy for the plague has long been developed, so there is no need for any panic, the epidemic does not threaten us. Nothing extraordinary is happening yet. Since there are natural foci of infection, this means that there will be periodic cases of infection. 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 100% effective. And it is used for epidemiological indications (that is, in areas where there are frequent cases of infection) and only among adults engaged in hunting and processing of wild animal skins.