The epidemic of rabies is gaining momentum in Russia
Last reviewed: 16.10.2021
All iLive content is medically reviewed or fact checked to ensure as much factual accuracy as possible.
We have strict sourcing guidelines and only link to reputable media sites, academic research institutions and, whenever possible, medically peer reviewed studies. Note that the numbers in parentheses ([1], [2], etc.) are clickable links to these studies.
If you feel that any of our content is inaccurate, out-of-date, or otherwise questionable, please select it and press Ctrl + Enter.
14 Russians died from this terrible disease last year, because they did not take the danger seriously
The Department of Rospotrebnadzor in the Moscow Region has published disappointing data: since the beginning of 2011 the geography of the spread of such a dangerous disease as rabies has increased by one and a half times, compared to the figures of the previous year for the same period.
Over the past two months, rabies have been recorded on the territory of 15 municipalities - only 29 cases (last year's figures - 19 in 10 municipalities). The most unfavorable are Klinsky, Istra, Yegoryevsky and Naro-Fominsky districts, where the greatest number of cases of the disease are recorded. In general, we are talking about wild animals - 18 cases, pets fell ill three times less often.
Most often, infected animals attacked people in the Istra and Ozersky regions. Another distinctive feature of the last time-people are increasingly bitten by forest dwellers, who became ill with rabies.
An unsuitable situation is not only in the Moscow region. Nizhny Novgorod, Yaroslavl, Rostov, Lipetsk, Ulyanovsk, Tver, Kostroma, Ivanovo, Kursk, Smolensk, Omsk, Sverdlovsk regions are only part of the territory of the country where natural foci of rabies have recently intensified. In general, the infection was registered in 63 subjects of the Russian Federation.
The situation in a number of places and now is so serious that the authorities are forced to introduce emergency measures there.
In the Yaroslavl region, for example, 33 settlements had to be closed for quarantine. At a special control of specialists Pereslavsky, Rostov, Nekrasovsky and Gavrilov-Yamsk regions. All domestic animals in the local villages and villages are subject to mandatory vaccination, even those that found themselves in these places, as they say, "passing through". In this case, even if the animal is bitten by a rabid beast, the disease is not transmitted.
In the quarantine for rabies, several areas of the Ulyanovsk region, where since the beginning of the year 34 animals have been affected by animals with this diagnosis, and Lipetsk. Restrictive measures introduced in the Smolensk region (the corpse of an infected cat found recently in one of the streets of the regional center), in the Kursk, Nizhny Novgorod, Rostov and Omsk.
Rabies is gaining momentum in the Urals. In the Sverdlovsk region since the beginning of the year, the incidence among animals has grown 1.5 times to the level of the same period in 2010. A deadly virus managed to visit 74 settlements during this time. More than two thousand inhabitants of the region suffered from animal teeth.
Wild animals literally attacked Chelyabinsk, Miass, Troitsk, Emanzhelinsky, Chebarkul and Chesme districts. In Troitsk, the situation resembles stories from horror films: flocks of stray dogs have become a real threat to the inhabitants of the city. In March, a pack of angry dogs killed a young woman to death, and as it turned out, it was not their first victim - near the site of the attack, the remains of another man were found.
And recently a stray dog bitten a little girl. The animal pounced on the child in the vicinity of the railway station, clutching the baby's cheek with his teeth. The girl's mother struggled to discourage her daughter from the brutalized dog.
In total, in the first quarter of 2011, 106 residents of this Ural city, affected by animal bites, applied to the medical staff.
According to the World Health Organization, every year in the world of rabies kills 55 thousand people, that is, one person every 10 minutes. Another 10 million people on Earth receive specific treatment, the cost of which in the most disadvantaged countries of Asia and Africa is about 560 million dollars. In terms of economic damage, this disease ranks fifth, and is the tenth most important cause of death among people with other infectious diseases.
And although Russia, according to WHO experts, does not belong to countries where the situation can be called critical, experts say that in the long-term dynamics of the incidence of rabies, there is a pronounced upward trend with an average rate of 10% per year.