Vol 15, No 5 (2010)

The follow-up of the manifestations of different forms of the epidemic process of hepatitides B and C and their ratio estimation have established the preserved high epidemiological and social significance by the asymptomatic variant of hepatitis B, the reduced tension of this criteria by the chronic and acute components. The similar situation was revealed by the acute form of hepatitis C, and conversely, the poor prognosis by the chronic and asymptomatic forms was more evident than that in hepatitis B.

Two hundred and twenty-six inpatients were examined for molds in the cancer, hematology, pulmonology, and intensive care units of a children's hospital. Seven-three air samples collected in the hospital rooms and 201 washings from hospital environmental objects were simultaneously taken. The findings suggest that molds widely spread among the inpatients and in the hospital environment of the cancer, hematology, and pulmonology units of a children's hospital. There is evidence that in children's hospital patients, mold infection is hospital-acquired in most cases. There is a disparity between risk groups for mold infection and mycoses. The group risk for infection was pulmonology unit patients with cystic fibrosis and that for the disease was immunocompromised cancer unit patients with lymphoblastic leukemia.

Twenty-four Vibrio cholerae O1 Eltor cultures and 700 V. cholerae nonO1/non/O139 strains were isolated during the 2003-2008 monitoring of the surface water reservoirs and waste waters of Rostov-on-Don. The specific features of V. cholerae circulation were revealed in the environmental water objects in the area under study. These included a dynamic increasing trend for the number of annually isolated cultures; detection of single epidemiologically dangerous strains during cholera epidemic well-being; no direct quantitative relationship between the found strains of V. cholerae of the serological groups O1 and nonO1/nonO139 strains. The microbiological and epidemiological aspects of the monitoring of surface water reservoirs and waste waters for V. cholerae were considered. The monitoring of the Vibrio flora of environmental water objects was shown to promote the higher effectiveness of cholera epidemiological surveillance in the areas under control.

Eight hundred and fifty-seven patients with HIV infection were treated at a multidisciplinary health care facility, Ministry of the Russian Federation in the period 1995-2008. From 2005 to 2008, the proportion of patients in a stage of AIDS increased from 5.5 to 25.6%. Half of the patients needed intensive care and surgical treatment. HIV was first detected in 48.9% of the patients; 35% concealed their HIV status on admission to the health care facility. In this connection, there is an increase in the risk for hospital-acquired infection in medical staff.

Human economic activity impairs the biocenotic relationships existing in the animal world and causes the formation of new ties that affect the epizootic and epidemiological situation of hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS). This accounts for the confinement of the natural foci of HFRS to the forest biotopes that preserve pathogen vectors and to the latter's absence in the human settlements surrounded by the transformed landscapes where the sources of the infection have disappeared from the composition of biocenoses. The European red-backed mouse (Clethrionomys) is the major reservoir in nature. The broad-leaved and mixed coniferous-broad-leaved forests of the Ural and Middle Volga Regions are the optimum area of this rodent. The Ulyanovsk Region has three types of landscapes: subtaiga, forest-steppe, and steppe zones. In the subtaiga zone, mortality is 5.4 and 10.7 times greater than that in the forest-steppe and steppe zones, respectively. Examining the epidemic process of HFRS has brought to light that its higher rates in the subtaiga area are due to a combination of social, natural, and biological factors. Success in combating the feral nidal infection cannot be expected without investigating the landscape features of its foci (a natural factor), without clarifying the forms of relationships of the pathogen with the host - the rodent and the environment (a biological factor), without taking into account the population groups that come into interaction with the pathogen population (a social factor).

The study was undertaken to define major differential diagnostic criteria for abdominal tuberculosis accompanied by diarrhea. One hundred and fort-two patients with abdominal tuberculosis, including 61 patients diagnosed as having gastrointestinal tuberculosis involving the intestinal tract, were examined. Eighty-one (57%) patients with abdominal tuberculosis had diarrhea, the latter was acute in 22 (27.2) cases of them and it was characterized as chronic organic in 59 (72.8%). Enteric infections and intestinal diseases of other etiology, including ulcerative and Crohn's disease, were excluded in one (30.3%) and two thirds. Histological signs are decisive in the diagnosis of the disease. The exudation mechanism is responsible in intestinal mucosal lesion and mainly increased peristaltic activity and irritation of intestinal nerve endings are in abdominal tuberculous lymphadenitis.

The results of analyzing the epidemic surge in the incidence of acute respiratory viral infection/influenza, including highly pathogenic influenza, in the Ivanovo Region, are presented. The specific features of the clinical course of infection and altered laboratory changes are defined and the predictors of the development of complications are ascertained. The efficiency of antiviral therapy is shown in the treatment of influenza A/H1N1/-sw.