Results of parasitological passportization of sewage treatment works in the South Federal District

Developed parasitological passports for sewage treatment works have been issued in the subjects of the Southern Federal District. Its some regions have areas inadequately covered by centralized water drainage. New waste treatment technologies and disinvasion agents have not been virtually introduced. No proper significance is attached to the parasitological studies of epidemiologically significant substrates, such as waste waters and their sludge. The positive results of dehelmintization and disinvasion are stated from the absence of helminth eggs rather than from the comparative results of sewer clearing from the invasion principle and their viability loss. Standard guides corresponding to the profile of objects are inadequately used in day-to-day work.     

The epidemiological and clinicoimmunological aspects of the outburst of trichinosis in the Krymsky District of the Krasnodar Territory

The present paper presents the epidemiological and clinicoimmunological aspects of the outburst of trichinosis in the Krymsky District of the Krasnodar Territory in January 2001. Six hundred and forty-eight persons ate infested wild boar meat, 119 (74.8%) fell ill with moderate and severe trichinosis. The authors provide the results of 3.5-year immunological studies of the patients with trichinosis and convalescents, infection-risk and healthy individuals; those of autopsies of the corpses of those who died from accidental causes unassociated with trichinosis, as well as examinations of domestic, synanthropic, and wild animals. The findings indicate that there is a focus of trichinosis with the low level of endemia in the Krymsky District of the Krasnodar Territory.     

The sanitary and parasitological characteristics of environmental objects in the south of Russia. Wastewaters and their precipitations

The relative uniformity of helminthic eggs has been noted in the wastewaters of the Rostov Region, Krasnodar Territory, and the Republic ofAdygea. An ovogram is mainly presented by the eggs of Ascaris, Toxocaras, and whipworms. By taking into account incomplete dehelmintization during waste treatment, 5,000 to 1,080,000 helminth eggs may annually come into the water reservoirs where purified wastewaters are discharged, 33% remaining viable. Irrespective of the efficiency of dehelmintization, wastewaters and their precipitations continue to remain epidemiologically dangerous substrates and to create prerequisites for the spread of an invasive source in the environment, by risking the infection of the population with parasitic diseases.     

Impact of effect of natural disasters on the circulation of causative agents of parasitic diseases

The southern region is marked by a high incidence of parasitic diseases and a significant contamination of environmental objects with the eggs and cysts of their pathogens. Background examinations revealed the greatest soil contamination with helminthic eggs in the Temryuksky District of the Krasnodar Territory and in the towns of Vladikavkaz and Digora of the Republic of North Ossetia (Alania). The least contamination was found in Rostov-on-Don and the towns of the south-western area of the Krasnodar Territory. The eggs of Toxocara and astamination. There is an increase in the proportion of soil positive tests from 26.6 to 50.0, with the high (up to 82.0-100.0%) viability of eggs and a rise in the intensive index of their content per kg of soil (from 2.7 to 4.7-11.0). Toxocara eggs were mainly detected. The established high proportion of seropositive persons (10.7-18.0%) among the local population is an additional verification of the wide circulation of Toxocara eggs in nature. By the helminthic egg contamination index, the soils of localities of the south of Russia are qualified as those of moderate epidemic hazard. The floods accompanied by the increased helminthological contamination of the upper soil layer may lead to a higher human risk for contamination with helminthic diseases.     

Trichinosis in the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania

The present paper presents the biological, epidemiological, clinical, and immunological characteristics of trichinosis in the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania, which is based on the results of long-term studies and follow-ups and on the 1971-2002 report data from medical and veterinary services and hunt inspectorate agencies. It has established that a total of 675 clinical cases of trichinosis were recorded in Ossetia-Alania in the period under study. The incidence rate of the disease ranged from 0.5 to 16.9 cases per 100,000 individuals, which was 5-20 times or more than the average federal rate. The source of infection of human trichinosis was meat from pigs in 70.7% of the cases and that from wild animals (boars and bears) in 21.3%. Immunological examinations (red cell-linked-antigen test and enzyme immunoassay) of patients with trichinosis who had ingested infected meat, but had not fallen ill with its manifestative form revealed 81.8 and 44.2% seropositive subjects, respectively. In different periods, a positive response ranged from 3.6 to 4.7% in healthy urban residents and from 6.4 to 11.8% in rural ones. The extensiveness of invasion was 0.06 to 1.4% in pigs from individual farms and 0.0033 to 0.034% in those from collective farms. In the Digorsk Region, the trichinosis infection rates were 13.4% in dogs, 4.8% in cats, and 1.3% in murine rodents. The extensiveness of invasion in wild boars was 6.35%. A population of one capsule-forming type of Trichinella spiralis was shown to circulate in the animals of natural and synanthropic biocenoses and it is just this population that determines the specific features of an epizootic process in this area. The natural and social factors that contribute to the formation and maintenance of the activity of endemic foci of trichinosis in the Ossetia-Alania under the present socioeconomic conditions are analyzed.