Activation of the plague natural foci in Central Asia: groundless apprehensions or a real threat

The plague continues to be one of the most terrible diseases that mankind has had to face. The emergence of effective vaccines, new generations of antibiotics, a decrease in the detectable activity of most natural foci of the plague and reduced incidence in the world have led to some calming of population, medical workers and anti-epidemic services in relation to this dangerous infection. Nevertheless, we don’t have any reliable information about the factors that served as a triggering mechanism for the emergence of three catastrophic plague pandemics that swept off thousands of human lives and for a long time paralyzed the economies of many countries of the world. There are good reasons to hypothesize that all three pandemics started in Central Asia. A number of researchers believe that the plague microbe appeared in this region. Plague is a natural focal disease, persisting in populations of warm-blooded carriers - rodents, harelike and poikilothermic vectors - fleas. One of the basic postulates of the theory of natural nidality is that the beginning of mass human morbidity is preceded by an obligatory increase in the activity of natural foci of any infection. Considering the current situation, we can conclude that there has been an unprecedented activation of the plague foci in the heart of Central Asia, in the Great Lakes Depression and adjacent territory, over the past seventy years. There is a rapid transformation of natural foci with a sharp increase in epizootic activity of the plague, an increase in the epizootic manifestation period, the development of new, highly virulent strains of the pathogen in new places and their spread to the areas where the plague microbe has never been detected before. Now it is difficult to guess what the consequences will have this situation, but the fact of the imbalance of the plague natural foci and their run out of the restraining ecosystem mechanisms from the epidemiological point of view requires the special attention of the relevant services of Russia, Mongolia and China.