Epidemic in Altai. Notifications

A case of infection with bubonic plague was recorded in Gorny Altai. Tourists on social networks sounded the alarm: is it safe to go here on vacation? Experts told Sibnet.ru whether there are real risks of infection and why local residents eat marmots, one of which was the source of a dangerous infection.

A ten-year-old child came to visit his grandparents for the summer at a remote shepherd's camp in the Kosh-Agach district. He became infected when he helped his grandfather butcher the carcass of a marmot. Shortly before this, the child injured his left hand. “I held the groundhog by the legs when grandfather removed the skin,” the boy told the doctors.

As the representative of Rospotrebnadzor explained, the infection entered the body through an unhealed wound. A few days later, the child's temperature rose to 39.6 degrees, and a lymph node (bubo) enlarged in the axillary region on the left. The ambulance paramedic who arrived at the call made a diagnosis: “suspicion of bubonic plague.” The child was hospitalized, and all those in contact with him were placed in quarantine.

Now, the interlocutor said, the boy is recovering, the "buboes" are almost not palpable, they are decreasing in size. Almost all contact persons were released from the isolation ward, only one boy remains under observation, but he has no symptoms of the disease.

Vaccinations for hunters

In the high-mountainous Kosh-Agach region, there is a natural focus of the plague, and for the last two years, an epidemic of the disease has been observed among rodents. Hunting for marmots is prohibited throughout the republic, but residents of the region ignore the ban. Their meat is considered almost a delicacy.

“Over the past two years, two people have been infected with the plague, both hunters, both hunted marmots, knowing about the danger. Citizens do not understand that they are playing roulette with the plague, because most often the hunters themselves, their wives and mothers who cook meat, their children and grandchildren who eat this meat get sick, ”the representative of Rospotrebnadzor specified.

The family of the sick boy, according to the interlocutor, knew about the ban on marmot hunting, but experts found traps for catching marmots in the parking lot, and at home in the refrigerator “there were expertly butchered carcasses of marmots.”

Local residents who periodically come into contact with rodents are vaccinated against the disease, but the boy who arrived for the holidays did not receive the vaccine - the parents did not tell the specialists that they would take the child to the parking lot. Meanwhile, other children who went to visit relatives in the highlands were vaccinated. The grandfather himself and the boy's parents, who often visit the parking lot, also vaccinated.

After a high-profile case in the region, a general vaccination of the population against the plague began. Previously, only those belonging to the "risk group" were vaccinated - livestock breeders, hunters, state inspectors. Almost 10 thousand people have already received the vaccine, and more than a thousand will receive the vaccine in the near future.

Marmots are mammals, representatives of the order of rodents of the squirrel family. The ancestral home of marmots is North America, from where they spread through Beringia to Asia, and further to Europe. Groundhogs are natural carriers of bubonic plague. In the Republic of Altai, marmots live in the Ulagan and Kosh-Agach regions, but only in the Kosh-Agach region, which borders Mongolia, are they infectious.

Delicacy or death?

Marmot meat is considered a delicacy among many peoples, including the inhabitants of the Kosh-Agach region. This tradition is ancient and widespread among many peoples of Asia. However, experts say, less agile and inhibited animals with plague often become hunting trophies.

Marmots spread the plague in neighboring countries. So, in 2013, a 15-year-old teenager died from bubonic plague in the Ak-Suu hospital in the Issyk-Kul region. He ate marmot shish kebab with his friends. And in the Chinese city of Yumen in 2014, a man who butchered a dead groundhog found for his dog was able to cure a pneumonic, more dangerous form of the plague. The city was then quarantined, all exits were blocked by army units. Last year, a teenager died after hunting a marmot in Mongolia, although in that country the ban on marmot hunting has been going on for more than 10 years. Panty and blood: the wild economy of Altai

In Altai, a plague outbreak was first discovered back in 1961, when 10 strains of the plague microbe were isolated from rodents and fleas in the valley of the Ulandryk River.

“Observation of the natural focus of plague in the Kosh-Agach region has been carried out for 55 years. It is impossible to eliminate the outbreak, two thirds of which are located on the territory of Mongolia. Residents of the Kosh-Agach district need to learn how to live in compliance with safety rules in order to reduce the risks of infection to a minimum,” the representative of the controlling agency emphasized.

Inspection of cars

“We do not limit ourselves to vaccination, we carry out explanatory work, we process the territory of settlements and livestock sites from rodents, specialists examine the area,” the source said.

The representative of the regional veterinary committee, in turn, said that three brigades have been created to regulate the number of marmots, they have already started work. And, according to the customs officer, at the Tashanta checkpoint, control over those entering has been strengthened, 200-300 people are inspected here every day. Two mobile traffic police posts inspect cars leaving the risk zone near the villages of Mukhor-Tarhata and Ortolyk.

However, clandestine marmot hunting continues in the area. Just a couple of days ago, when checking the quality of treatment of the territory from rodents, the skins of these animals were found in landfills in three villages of the district.

To go or not to go?

The news about the boy with the plague spread throughout the country in a matter of hours. Citizens who are going to the Altai Mountains for a vacation sounded the alarm and even began to reschedule their holidays so as not to accidentally pick up an exotic infection.

“I was just about to go there, what now, change the route?”, “One thing, then another! So go to Gorny”, “Recently we went with friends to the Kosh-Agach region, just a short trip. We saw a bunch of marmots... so people should still be warned", "Here is the help to the" purity "of the Altai Mountains, and for those who are so zealously developing domestic tourism, such" competition "is not frail." These and many similar statements were left by users on social networks.

However, as Sibnet explained. Ru representative of the Altai anti-plague station, you should not be afraid. The natural focus of the plague is located in remote places of the high-mountainous Kosh-Agach region, where organized tourist groups simply do not go, and special patrols will not let tourists traveling on their own.

“Contact with the marmot must be completely excluded, it cannot be contacted, caught. Tourists should not be in the contaminated area, but travel agencies do not lay routes there. Now we have groups working in those places, they report that apart from livestock breeders in the parking lots, there is no one there, no tourists,” the interlocutor explained.

The epidemiological season in the district will last until September 15, and until that time patrols of the district administration, police are working there, border guards are involved, who, if outsiders are found, will have to escort them out of the dangerous territory.

The most dangerous territories in the Kosh-Agach region, according to a specialist from the anti-plague department, are the Serbista, Irbista, Kok Ozek (“Green Valley”) tract, Elangash, the Barburgazy river valley, the vicinity of Kidyktukol lake, and the Ulandryk basin.

“In principle, there are no restrictions on visiting the Kosh-Agach region, but everything should be under control,” he stressed.

Traditions are dangerous

The number of people visiting the region is growing every year and, as the Minister of Economic Development and Tourism of the Republic Yevgeny Larin commented to Sibnet.ru, tourist flows are gradually “spreading” to distant, high-mountainous regions, including Kosh-Agach, as people become more mobile and infrastructure develops.

“The Kosh-Agach region has great potential, there are many objects of archaeological and cultural heritage, simply amazing nature. As for this situation, there is nothing critical in it, and both specialists and literate inhabitants understand this,” Larin said. Dangers of Altai: how and why locals "troll" tourists

“According to the results of June, the flow of tourists has already grown by 17%. Kosh-Agach is not the most popular place for vacationers, but last year alone, 55,000 people passed through customs on the border with Mongolia, and from the Russian side, these are mostly tourists,” the minister specified.

According to him, if you follow all the requirements and recommendations, do not violate the prohibitions, there are no risks: “In our time, the well-being of people does not make it necessary to hunt wild animals, in particular marmots. It is rather a centuries-old tradition, marmot meat is a special delicacy for local residents. But people should understand that now it has become simply dangerous.”

In the Altai region, where a child fell ill with bubonic plague, marmots will be poisoned en masse.

A case of infection with bubonic plague was recorded in the Kosh-Agachsky district of the Altai Republic. With such a diagnosis, a 10-year-old boy was hospitalized in the regional hospital. This information was confirmed to RG by the republican department of Rospotrebnadzor.

Quarantine was introduced in the district, 17 people who were in direct contact with the child were identified, all of them were also placed in an isolation cell under the supervision of doctors, the department noted.

According to doctors, the boy's condition is of moderate severity, nothing threatens the child's life now. Other hospitalized signs intkbbee no serious illness has yet been identified.

According to preliminary data, the child could become infected in the mountain camp during the cutting of the marmot carcass. For the third year in a row, an increase in the incidence of bubonic plague among animals has been noted in the region. In this connection, there is a ban on hunting marmots throughout the republic. But local residents ignore this ban and continue to hunt rodents and eat them.

As noted in the department of Rospotrebnadzor in the Republic of Altai, after a case of human infection, the entire population of the Kosh-Agach region will be vaccinated against bubonic plague. Prior to this, selective vaccination was carried out in the region among hunters, livestock breeders, inspectors of nature conservation areas, who, on duty, often visit the habitats of marmots.

In the Republic of Altai, deratization of areas where the plague was discovered has begun. Carriers of bubonic plague - marmots - will be poisoned in the villages of Kosh-Agach, Ortolyk and Mukhor-Tarkhata, writes Life.

To prevent the possible spread of the disease, a decision was made to poison the rodents not only in Kosh-Agach, the village where the family of the sick boy lives, but also in two neighboring ones - Ortolyk and Mukhor-Tarkhata, a source in the Ministry of Emergency Situations said.

Deratization will begin, according to preliminary information, on July 14. In the yards and on the streets of villages, disinfectants will pass through the streets of the villages and spread poisoned baits: millet, seeds or oil. In the house where the boy's family lives, disinfection will be carried out, it will be treated with deochlor or calcium chloride. Deratization work will be carried out within 7-9 days.

A ten-year-old boy diagnosed with bubonic plague was taken to the hospital of the Kosh-Agach district of the Altai Republic. Seventeen other people he came into contact with had to be hospitalized. So far, no signs of infection have been found. Soon additional doses of the vaccine will be delivered to the Republic of Altai. Vaccination against bubonic plague is planned for the entire population, except for children under the age of two.

According to doctors, 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.

Professor, Head of the Department of Infectious Diseases of the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia Galina Kozhevnikova told NSN where and how you can get bubonic plague.

“If we talk about the whole world, then this is Vietnam, India, Mongolia, there were also cases of plague in Kazakhstan. As for the territory of Russia, these are the Baikal region, the steppe zone of Altai, the Volga region. They are associated with the so-called contact route of infection, that is, it is through contact with an animal. Either the skin is removed from this animal, this happens with hunters, or contact with a sick animal, because a healthy animal does not go out to people. People, not knowing that they can get infected, they get help, or children play with them, ”explained Kozhevnikova.

According to the interlocutor of the NSN, the bubonic plague or "black death", which claimed tens of millions of lives in the Middle Ages, is now being successfully treated.

“The cutaneous or dermal-bubonic form, if correctly diagnosed, is treated quite successfully. To do this, use antibiotics of the tetracycline series, penicillin series, a wide range of antibiotics that have a positive effect. There is a certain control over epizootics, that is, the spread of plague among animals. There are anti-plague stations, they work and monitor whether there are cases among animals in these regions. They carry out the described, well-known preventive measures there. If suddenly a person is even suspected of the plague, then there are also quarantine measures. Plague belongs to the group of quarantine infections. Everything is spelled out, if it is carried out, then no distribution occurs, ”the expert emphasized.

In conclusion, Kozhevnikova spoke about how to behave for those who were going to go to relax in nature.

“As for prevention, this primarily concerns people who go hunting, for some kind of outdoor recreation. Here, first of all, you need to think about the fact that you need to minimize contact with animals and in no case provide assistance, do not play, do not take in an animal that has come to the tent city. This is a very simple method, but you need to remember this, ”Kozhevnikova noted.

So far, the last case of bubonic plague infection was recorded in October 2015 in the state of Oregon. Then the doctors diagnosed bubonic plague to a 16-year-old girl. It was assumed that she was infected by a flea when the girl was hunting in the forest. The American felt unwell, after which she went to the doctor. After a course of antibiotics, the girl began to recover.

Bubonic plague is the predominant form of plague in humans, an acute natural focal disease caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, carried by fleas that can pass from rats to humans. Plague is a particularly dangerous infection that develops when the pathogen penetrates the skin, which can occur when bitten by infected fleas. Symptoms of bubonic plague are inflammation of the lymph nodes with the formation of "buboes" and fever, expressed intoxication.

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 focus is located in Mongolia, and, perhaps, our focus 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.