The Yamal Peninsula: an anthrax epidemic broke out in the land of reindeer herders. Three versions of the anthrax epidemic in Sverdlovsk (10 photos, video)
The yellow building surrounded by a fence is the “tip of the iceberg” called Sverdlovsk - 19
Exactly 35 years ago, in April 1979, in the Chkalovsky district of Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg), located in the southern part of the city, a mysterious event occurred - an anthrax epidemic began to gain momentum at a terrifying pace. The authorities were silent. Only a few weeks later, a “legend” was formulated that the cause of the death of dozens, and according to unofficial data, hundreds of people was an infection that entered the city along with the meat of infected animals. But with the fall of the Soviet Union, the veil of secrecy was lifted from the mysterious epidemic, revealing a terrible truth - the cause of the death of Sverdlovsk residents was a release in one of the secret research institutes of microbiology under the Ministry of Defense of the USSR, located in the city, known among the townspeople as the military city "Sverdlovsk - 19".
Anthrax - acute infectious disease, flowing mainly in the form of a skin form, much less often - in the pulmonary and intestinal forms with sepsis.
The causative agent of the disease is anthrax bacillus (Bacillus anthracis), which is very unstable during external environment and quickly dies when heated and using conventional disinfectants. However, it is able to form a spore with a powerful capsule - and then the resistance of the pathogen increases by an order of magnitude. The spore can stay for hours disinfectant solutions and withstands up to 20 minutes of boiling. In this form, the bacillus can persist in the ground for several decades. It is these features of the pathogen anthrax, as well as almost one hundred percent lethality of the pulmonary form of the disease, made it possible to consider the anthrax bacillus as a biological weapon.
The pathogen enters the body through the skin (95%), which leads to the development of the cutaneous form of anthrax. If spores are inhaled, the pulmonary form can develop, if swallowed, the intestinal form of the disease can develop. Signs of general intoxication (fever up to 40 ° C, general weakness, weakness, headache, tachycardia) appear by the end of the first day or on the 2nd day of illness. The fever lasts for 5-7 days, the body temperature drops critically, that is, sharply. Local changes in the focus area gradually heal (with appropriate treatment) and by the end of 2-3 weeks the scab is torn off, an ulcer is formed, which is then replaced by scar tissue. The condition of patients from the first hours of the disease becomes severe, there are severe stabbing pains in the chest, shortness of breath, cyanosis, tachycardia (up to 120-140 beats / min), blood pressure goes down. There is an admixture of blood in the sputum. Death occurs in 2-3 days. With any of the described forms, anthrax sepsis (blood poisoning) can develop with the occurrence of secondary foci (meningitis, damage to the liver, kidneys, spleen and other vital organs). Anthrax needs operational methods of treatment and the possibility of organizing quarantine zones in infected areas. The administration of Sverdlovsk was not ready for such an emergency, because nothing like this had ever happened in the city before (and later too) ...!
Chronology of events
April 2 - the first death of a person from anthrax, an employee of the town of Sverdlovsk-19 F.D.Nikolaev. Transfer of the officers of campus No. 32 (located next to campus No. 19 - approx.) to the barracks.
April 3 - the beginning of the mass death of domestic animals.
April 3-4 - continuous medical examination and vaccination of scientific personnel of military camp No. 19. Military builders who lived on the territory of the camp were not subject to vaccination.
April 4 - arrival from Moscow of the head of the 15th department of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the USSR, Colonel-General E.I. Smirnov, specialists from the USSR Ministry of Health - Deputy Minister of Health, Chief State Sanitary Doctor of the USSR General P.N. Burgasov, as well as the chief infectious disease specialist of the USSR Ministry of Health V.N. Nikiforov. They were sent by the Minister of Health B.V. Petrovsky to fight the epidemic, which the doctors of the affected city did not yet know about.
The evening of April 4, 1979 - the appearance of the first sick and dead civilians, primarily among the workers of the ceramic factory. They ended their lives in the mortuary of the 20th hospital with a diagnosis of pneumonia.
On April 5, 1979, for three weeks, 5 or more civilians died daily in the disaster area. They went through the morgues of the 24th, 20th, 40th and other hospitals. The decline in mortality occurs only in the third decade of April.
April 10, 1979 - the first autopsy performed by civilian doctors in the city hospital No. 40
April 10, 1979 - giving the diagnosis of "cutaneous anthrax" an official status among the civilian medical circles of the city.
April 12, 1979 - the allocation of a building in the 40th city hospital for the organization of a special department with 500 beds - this is the maximum number of patients expected at the peak of the epidemic.
April 13, 1979 - the appearance in the newspapers of Sverdlovsk of modest publications warning residents against contracting the skin form of "anthrax" in connection with the consumption of the meat of dead animals.
April 13, 1979 - Organized funerals for the dead begin. They were concentrated in the 15th sector of the Eastern Cemetery. Among the first buried: F.D. Nikolaev (officer of Sverdlovsk-19, born in 1912, it is written on the pedestal that he died on April 9, but it is believed that it was with this person that the count of deaths began).
April 21, 1979 - the beginning of a continuous vaccination of the civilian population and disinfection of the territory of the Chkalovsky district and the emergence of a second wave of deaths among civilians.
June 12, 1979 - the death of the last person who died in the area of the "anthrax" epidemic.
The fifteenth sector of the Eastern Cemetery - the victims of the epidemic are buried here.
Data on the number of deaths vary, so according to official figures of the dead, about 100, and not according to unofficial ones - 500 people. The victims of the epidemic were buried at the Eastern Cemetery of Yekaterinburg, in a specially designated sector of the churchyard - No. 15, no one takes away the faded plastic wreaths from there (they are burned right there), and in addition to relatives, the graves of the deceased are frequent visitors SES representatives Yekaterinburg, monitoring the epidemiological situation. The dead were buried in coffins filled with a mixture of chlorine and special reagents, without honors.
One of the sheets of the report of American researchers. Pay attention to the sex and age of the victims.
An interesting feature was noted during the epidemic, as it turned out, a virus that got out of control destroys people for some reason selectively: mostly men of mature age, but many women. It is important to keep in mind that some risk groups were not affected during the epidemic. Children did not die at all - not a single child or teenager not only died, but did not even get sick. The statement of General V.I. Evstigneev about the existence of children among the dead is at least not true: in the official list that was prepared by the KGB, children do not appear. Mortality among the elderly was negligible, but after many years and in the absence of documents, it can no longer be distinguished from natural. Thus, it is possible to formulate a very specific feature of the raging strain of the virus, a feature absolutely not typical of what nature produced - selectivity, the virus “hunted”, only for that category of citizens who, in the event of an armed conflict, could take up arms ...
Reasons for what happened
There was a lot of politics around diagnosing people affected by the epidemic. It would be possible to indicate the degree of danger of a serious illness, place an order for the necessary antibiotics immediately after the discovery of a leak, then the city would be ready, but time was lost, in the hope of hiding everything and chaotic actions on the ground - as it usually happens if something affects the foundations of the strategic interests of the Great Power, then no one pays attention to the "little people".
According to the official version, the epidemic in Sverdlovsk (like most other cases of anthrax infection in the world) was caused by the consumption of meat from infected cattle. But as it turned out later, this version was nothing more than the result of an operation to cover up an ecological disaster organized by the KGB. According to KGB General A.Ya. Mironyuk: “a whole program of disinformation was developed public opinion in the country and in the world. They took control of mail and communications. the press. Worked with foreign intelligence. I don’t know if Academician Burgasov was in the know, but he did his part of the “program” perfectly.” It would not be possible if he (an academician and expert on anthrax) was slipped data on “discovery” in “26 settlements along the Chelyabinsk tract connecting Sverdlovsk and Chelyabinsk, .. 27 cases of anthrax in cattle.” Subsequently, the most knowledgeable person- chief veterinarian of the Sverdlovsk region, As it turned out, for 20 years of work in this post, anthrax did not get from livestock into food industry. In Sverdlovsk itself, the cover operation was carried out without much frills. Two weeks after the start of the events, recommendations were given to the press for residents to beware of anthrax infection from the meat of sick animals. A little earlier, colorful posters with a painted cow and the caption “anthrax” appeared on the walls of houses, and that’s all.
Only one person knew about the real background of the events - General E.I. Smirnov, who arrived in Sverdlovsk on April 4 - the head of the 15th department of the General Staff, the owner of Sverdlovsk-19. It was to him that the leadership of the delinquent military biological institute reported the disaster. On the last Friday in March 1979, when the production of anthrax spores was temporarily suspended, one of the laboratory workers removed a dirty filter that prevented the release of spores into the surrounding space. He left a note about this, but did not make the proper journal entry. The supervisor of the next shift turned on the equipment, and only a few hours later noticed that the filter was not installed.
A cloud consisting of deadly spores burst out and turned out through the ventilation system (the system at that time was not perfect and had access to environment- note) the wind rose was spread to the south and southeast from the place of release, partially passed over the territory of the nearby military camp No. 32, through the Vtorchermet area and the village of the ceramic factory. The 19th town itself did not fall under the ejection cloud. According to the magazine "Ural", former boss Andrey Mironyuk, a special department of the Ural Military District, told a journalist: “In early April, they began to report to me that several soldiers and reserve officers who were training in the 32nd military camp had died. For two weeks we worked out various versions: livestock, food, raw materials for factories, and so on. I asked the head of the 19th campus, which is located next to the 32nd and where there was a military laboratory, for a map of the direction of the winds blowing in those days from this object. They gave it to me. I decided to double-check the data and requested similar information at the Koltsovo airport. Significant discrepancies were found. Then we created operational groups and went the following way: we interviewed the relatives of the dead in detail and literally by hours and minutes, with specific reference to the area, marked on the map the places where the dead were located. So, at a certain time, somewhere at 7-8 o'clock in the morning, they all ended up in the wind zone from the 19th town. The patient locations stretched in an elongated oval with a long axis of about 4 kilometers - from the military camp to the southern outskirts of the Chkalovsky district, where the population density in 1979 was 10 thousand people per one square kilometer. Then people from the KGB connected their equipment to the back office of the laboratory, and we found out the truth. The first outbreak of the ulcer occurred as a result of the negligence of the attendants: one of the laboratory employees came early in the morning and, having started work, did not turn on defense mechanisms. As a result, the pressure on the “shirt” increased sharply. ventilation system, the filter burst and released deadly anthrax spores. They fanned out across the territory, where innocent people subsequently began to die. The victims were those who hurried to the town early in the morning to get ready, to work, study, who were on the balcony, on the street, and so on. It is up to scientists to decide whether it was a bacteriological weapon or something else. We knew for sure that the source of the infection was a military laboratory, and its leadership tried to hide this fact. Only after they were pinned to the wall, the experts confessed. It was then that a whole program was developed to misinform public opinion in the country and the world. They took control of mail, communications, and the press. We also worked with foreign intelligence…”.
An interesting feature of the virus was discovered by American researchers who worked with materials about the tragedy after the collapse of the Union. It turned out that the cause of the epidemic was anthrax strains under the code designations: VNTR4 and VNTR6, which are of “western origin” (USA and South Africa, respectively) and are not found anywhere else in the world, as they are a product of biological engineering. As it turned out in these years, intelligence worked extremely actively, acquiring strains of the pathogen virus in foreign research institutes, transferring samples for study to the laboratory of Sverdlovsk - 19.
The Research Institute of the Military Biological Center of the USSR Ministry of Defense was known as Sverdlovsk-19 (military unit 47051). The center was established in 1946 on the outskirts of Sverdlovsk to carry out military biological work. There is very little official information about the activities of the center, only the research institutes have worked with many bacteria “suitable” for use as biological weapons (anthrax, plague, tularemia, glanders, melioidosis, ebola, hemarological fever, etc.). When the institute was just created, it was located in the forest, far from the eyes of the townspeople, when over the years it became clear that with the development of the city, residential areas would inevitably approach a dangerous military biological facility, it should have been moved away from housing and closer to some kind of meat processing plant - a source of lamb for preparing a nutrient broth for bacteria. But they didn’t transfer the military institute with an extensive infrastructure, it was too troublesome, so they acted differently - not only a meat processing plant was built next to the military camp, but also many other enterprises, including Khimmash. There is also a residential area "Vtorchermet". So Sverdlovsk-19 ended up in the center of a large, Chkalovsky district in a large industrial city. Sverdlovsk-19 is subdivided into three zones as secrecy increases. The creation of biological weapons was carried out in the most inaccessible - the third, special (“working”) zone. Industrial premises the special zones were located not on the surface, but deep underground. The laboratories were looking for new strains of fighting bacteria. Since 1973, scientists began to use the achievements of genetic engineering and molecular biology. In the workshops in experimental and industrial reactors (fermenters), stocks of combat bacteria were accumulated. So, the Sverdlovsk-19 military biological center was engaged in at least three types of work: 1) growing new combat strains of dangerous bacteria; 2) the creation of new types of biological munitions, including by order and with the participation of other military biological centers; 3) production of biological weapons. It is also known that Sverdlovsk-19 was part of the strictly classified Biopreparat system, which was engaged in the development and production of biological weapons prohibited by an international convention, to which the USSR joined in 1972.
Of course, there is no specifics about what the Sverdlovsk-19 scientists managed to create. All the work and the results obtained were classified. Information in the public domain is extremely scarce, but allows you to make general idea about a secret research institute, in which truly doomsday engineers worked for the benefit of the Soviet Motherland ...
"Biopreparat" (enterprise post box A-1063) is a research and production association founded in the Soviet Union in 1973. The main task of the association and its institutions, in addition to the usual production of medical drugs and vaccines, was the secret development of biological weapons. Contrary to the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) Weapons and Toxin Weapons, signed by the USSR in 1972, the Biopreparat units in the late 70s and early 80s carried out active research and development of about 50 pathogens. By the end of the 80s. association issued every year the new kind biological weapons, including such dangerous diseases as anthrax, Ebola, Marburg, Lassa, smallpox, typhus, plague, etc.
The resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR on the transfer of industrial production of ammunition with anthrax from Sverdlovsk to Stepnogorsk was adopted in 1981, including because of the 1979 epidemic. In fact, the obligation to produce this type of biological weapon was removed from Sverdlovsk only in 1987, after which the production line was stopped. In the spring of 1988, stocks of weapons based on anthrax and waste from its production were transported to the Aral Sea and buried on Vozrozhdeniye Island.
Conclusion.
The events in Sverdlovsk cannot be called a local tragedy. The anthrax epidemic of 1979 became the largest biological catastrophe of the century on the scale of all mankind. Never the world has seen anything like it, deadly dangerous virus, supposedly modified by man, not only ended up at large, taking hundreds of lives, but was also "subdued" by Soviet microbiologists and doctors, who curbed death at the cost of their own lives.
But some researchers refer to the political aspect of what happened. After the indicated events in Sverdlovsk, the USSR proved in practice to the whole world that we not only have bacteriological weapons (despite all the UN prohibitions - ed.), but also the means of controlling the spread of the virus in open spaces in large population centers, thereby proving by deed its readiness to a large-scale biological warfare and repel a similar threat from the outside ...
In April 1979 I was a student. My wife was a student and already 5 months old.
I remember all those terrible times very well. Hallways filled with chlorine. Soldiers, day and night, digging up the entire open surface. Sprinklers pouring some smelly stuff.
Vaccinations that were given not with a syringe, but with some kind of pistol in the Vtorchermet Palace of Culture. And huge queues for these vaccinations.
I endured the vaccination painlessly, but my wife was not given at all.
But the worst part is the unknown!
And rumors. Either someone died right in the tram, or someone was walking on the street, fell and was not taken.
And we lived just in the zone of infection, a kilometer from the town. How not to get infected, the Almighty alone knows.
Probably because they left home at 7 am and came back at 9 pm, or even later.
And I also remember the columns of smoke above the factories Meat Processing Plant, Zhirkombinat and Worsted Combine, which are located nearby and were built specifically for growing some kind of raw material ... According to rumors, they burned everything with napalm meat products and all wool.
There was nothing to buy meat, and the trade in meat and meat products was prohibited in the markets.
April 1979 was marked for the inhabitants of Sverdlovsk by the mass deaths of people who became victims of anthrax. The epidemic lasted about two and a half months. It is still not clear what caused it. There are several versions of how anthrax got into the city. According to one of them, the cause was infected cattle. According to another, the workers of the secret biological laboratory of the military camp of Sverdlovsk-19 are guilty. There is also a version that it was a diversion.
PhD in Biology Mikhail Supotnitsky, who worked in the 19th military camp, links the epidemic in the town with the release of spores by foreign agents.
At the end of March 1979, research with anthrax spores was stopped for some time, but one of the employees removed the contaminated filter, which protected the environment from the threat of leakage of hazardous substances, about which he wrote a note, but did not make a note in special magazine. The next shift, turned on the equipment, as a result of which the spores began to spread freely with the air flow. Together with the wind, a deadly cloud flew to the southeast, south, as a result of which people who lived in the neighboring 32nd military town, as well as workers of a ceramic factory, began to die.
The version of negligence does not quite fit into the usual framework, because the filter is two or three cascaded, built into engineering systems. Even if one filter breaks, two more filters are installed to ensure greater security, so the version of sabotage seems more plausible. It also seems strange that anthrax spores could fly a distance of 50 km. at the right concentration, because closer source ejection - the greater should be the defeat. In this situation, everything points to the opposite - no one got sick with anthrax in the 19th military town!
The first deceased patient was reported on April 4, 1979. After that, five people died almost every day for 2-3 weeks. The diagnosis, the skin form of anthrax, was established only on April 10, after the autopsy of the corpse. According to various sources, from 65 to 100 people died at that time.
A surprising fact, which also confirms the sabotage, is that the incubation period for anthrax that has entered through the respiratory tract is 4 to 5 days. In this case, the epidemic lasted about 70 days. According to scientists, it is not so easy to get infected with anthrax - at least 40 thousand spores are needed for one person.
Brigades of chemists walked around the city every night, carefully disinfecting the streets. Although the local population did not believe the authorities, their statements about infected meat made sense, because if it was inhaled anthrax, it means that powder with spores was constantly scattered around the city, and if it was an intestinal form, animal feed was contaminated, the meat of which is further without proper veterinary control was sold in the city. When registering the first cases of the disease, a myth was invented about the negligence of one of the laboratory employees.
Some commentators of the tragedy see confirmation of the sabotage version in the fact that the Voice of America radio announced the release of anthrax spores on April 5. And now it is not known how journalists, being in Washington, could learn about the tragedy? Mikhail Supotnitsky believes that it was the United States that was beneficial to infect Sverdlovsk, since after the epidemic, the closed city of Sverdlovsk-19 was liquidated, in which the center of military-technical problems of bacteriological protection was located.
The number of people hospitalized from an anthrax outbreak in Yamal has risen from nine to 13, mostly children, local authorities say.
"Four more tundra workers from the Yamal tundra were taken to the Salekhard Clinical Hospital for additional examination and observation," TASS quoted the press service of the region's governor Dmitry Kobylkin as saying.
"The medical staff is conducting proactive treatment and is awaiting the final analysis of experts from Moscow. In parallel, children are being screened for other diseases," the ministry said.
It is noted that representatives of the YaNAO government and the district health department are in constant contact with the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation and relevant federal departments.
On the this moment more than 20 different specialists work at the site of the outbreak, air sanitation is on duty around the clock. "At a distance of 80 km from the site, six 10-seat tents from the material reserve of the YNAO in case of emergency have already been deployed. First of all, women and children are transported to a safe place by helicopters. Some heads of nomadic families expressed their intention to stay to help veterinarians and sanitary specialists - no more than 10 people," the press service added.
It is also reported that 500 deer were vaccinated with the anthrax vaccine on Monday. "Today (specialists will work until late at night) 2.5 thousand heads will be vaccinated and tomorrow, July 27 - 1 thousand heads. Vaccination is carried out in a portable corral, which was delivered to the territory by helicopter the day before," the press service notes. In addition, places are being prepared for the disposal of fallen deer.
Anthrax outbreak recorded in Yamal for the first time in 75 years. To date, more than 1.5 thousand reindeer have died from it. Quarantine has been introduced in the Yamal region, the authorities assure that there is no threat to the population.
According to preliminary data from the authorities, the cause of the infection of the deer was an unusual warm summer. During the month, the Yamal was anomalously hot - up to 35 degrees above zero. " The thawed tundra contributed to the manifestation of the source of infection- the remains of an animal that fell a long time ago, - the site of the governor of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District reports. “The deer in this area were extremely weakened due to the heat, which contributed to their infection.”
According to the Rosselkhoznadzor, sporadic cases of anthrax in animals are registered in Russia: annually two or three points are unfavorable for the disease and from two to seven sick animals. At the same time, in the period from 2009 to 2014, 40 cases of anthrax were registered in the country (43% more than in the previous five years) in three federal districts: 20 in the North Caucasus, 11 in the Siberian and nine - in the South.
In 2015, three residents of the Balashovsky district of the Saratov region were diagnosed with anthrax. It turned out that all three participated in the slaughter of a bull.
Anthrax is a particularly dangerous infectious disease of agricultural and wild animals of all kinds, as well as humans. The source of infection are wild animals and livestock, the disease is not transmitted from person to person.
Infection occurs by contact, the incubation period of the disease lasts an average of three to five days. The disease proceeds at lightning speed, is characterized by hemorrhagic inflammation of the skin, lymph nodes and internal organs.
Anthrax bacilli. Remember them carefully and if you see them somewhere, immediately call the orderlies.
This anthrax is called anthrax only here, in Russia, after its epidemic in Siberia in the 18th century was described in detail in the medical treatise “On Anthrax”. In the rest of the world, the contagion is known as anthrax, and its carrier is known as the bacterium Bacillus anthracis. Recent times the disease is rarely heard about, only the sensational story of 2001 with the transfer of white powder to American officials is recalled. In Yamal, the last outbreak was 75 years ago.
This disease is common in the animal world, it rarely spreads to humans, but if it has already spread, the consequences will be catastrophic. The disease can develop in just a few hours, turning a person into a living and terrible carrier of the infection, on whose body a terrible ulcer grows. As a rule, it is one, but there have been cases with 10-20 ulcers in patients. The initial size is two millimeters, and its appearance is not worse mosquito bite, then the papule itches, grows, changes color, gradually darkens. During the day, the ulcer can grow up to one and a half centimeters. The black color in its center is due to tissue necrosis. The body temperature reaches forty degrees, intoxication of the body occurs. If there is no timely antibiotic treatment, death is one in five.
A black ulcer on the skin is not the worst thing. The real trouble is if the disease begins to develop inside the body, affecting internal organs, then even treatment will not give any guarantees (the only consolation is that this is a rare form of the disease, 1-2% of total number). In this case, expect severe chills, a temperature of forty degrees, shortness of breath, cough, chest pain, nausea. It all ends with swelling of the brain and gastrointestinal bleeding, which will not let the patient get sick for a long time, but will send him to the cemetery. In the absence of treatment, the likelihood lethal outcome almost one hundred percent.
The problem has always been anthrax spores, which are incredibly long-lived, resistant to heat treatment and can persist for a long time in the carcasses of dead animals. What's in the carcasses! If sick deer grazed on the field, then the spores contained in the urine and droppings penetrate the ground and remain there for years. The spore most often penetrates into a person through the skin if there is a small wound in it - it is at this point that the notorious ulcer will appear later. In general, nothing is more fun.
Click if you are not afraid of unpleasant pictures!
Anthrax victims. We note that this is not the most running cases, we are simply afraid to show you more edifying pictures
Now about the good. The disease has long been known, studied, in the USSR Bacillus anthracis was not allowed to go down, developing numerous preventive and medicinal products, as well as a set of measures that prevent anthrax from reaching people. The fact that now the media is trumpeting with might and main about the infection a large number residents of Yamal is a sign that the system has already started working: quarantine has begun, people are being isolated, suspicious animals, animal burial grounds are being checked, carrion is being burned, and vaccination is being carried out. It would be worse if the epidemic broke out, grew, and no one in the nearest cities knew about it.
Ordinary penicillin, an old, proven infection fighter, oddly enough, is still effective. The causative agent of anthrax rarely comes into contact with humans and lives in deserted places, so it did not have the opportunity to mutate and acquire resistance to penicillin. The most important thing in anthrax is to diagnose it in time, because the disease is swift and every hour of delay reduces the likelihood of survival even with the right treatment. It is encouraging that in big city the chance of infection is minimal, unless you eat a suspicious piece of deer meat from an unverified source while sitting on a suspicious cowhide from an unverified source.
The yellow building surrounded by a fence is the “tip of the iceberg” called Sverdlovsk - 19
Exactly 35 years ago, in April 1979, in the Chkalovsky district of Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg), located in the southern part of the city, a mysterious event occurred - an anthrax epidemic began to gain momentum at a terrifying pace. The authorities were silent. Only a few weeks later, a “legend” was formulated that the cause of the death of dozens, and according to unofficial data, hundreds of people, was an infection that entered the city along with the meat of infected animals. But with the fall of the Soviet Union, the veil of secrecy was lifted from the mysterious epidemic, revealing a terrible truth - the cause of the death of Sverdlovsk residents was a release in one of the secret research institutes of microbiology under the Ministry of Defense of the USSR, located in the city, known among the townspeople as the military city "Sverdlovsk - 19".
Anthrax is an acute infectious disease that occurs mainly in the form of a skin form, much less often in the pulmonary and intestinal forms with sepsis.
The causative agent of the disease - anthrax bacillus (Bacillus anthracis), is very unstable in the external environment and quickly dies when heated and using conventional disinfectants. However, it is able to form a spore with a powerful capsule - and then the stability of the pathogen increases by an order of magnitude. The spore can stay in disinfectant solutions for hours and can withstand up to 20 minutes of boiling. In this form, the bacillus can persist in the ground for several decades. It is these features of the anthrax pathogen, as well as the almost 100% lethality of the pulmonary form of the disease, that made it possible to consider the anthrax bacillus as a biological weapon.
The pathogen enters the body through the skin (95%), which leads to the development of the cutaneous form of anthrax. If spores are inhaled, the pulmonary form can develop; if swallowed, the intestinal form of the disease can develop. Signs of general intoxication (fever up to 40 ° C, general weakness, weakness, headache, tachycardia) appear by the end of the first day or on the 2nd day of illness. The fever lasts for 5-7 days, the body temperature drops critically, that is, sharply. Local changes in the focus area gradually heal (with appropriate treatment) and by the end of 2-3 weeks the scab is torn off, an ulcer is formed, which is then replaced by scar tissue. The condition of patients from the first hours of the disease becomes severe, there are severe stabbing pains in the chest, shortness of breath, cyanosis, tachycardia (up to 120-140 beats / min), blood pressure decreases. There is an admixture of blood in the sputum. Death occurs in 2-3 days. With any of the described forms, anthrax sepsis (blood poisoning) can develop with the occurrence of secondary foci (meningitis, damage to the liver, kidneys, spleen and other vital organs). Anthrax needs operational methods of treatment and the possibility of organizing quarantine zones in infected areas. The administration of Sverdlovsk was not ready for such an emergency, because nothing like this had ever happened in the city before (and later too) ...!
Chronology of events
April 2 - the first death of a person from anthrax, an employee of the town of Sverdlovsk-19 F.D. Nikolaev. Transfer of the officers of campus No. 32 (located next to campus No. 19 - approx.) to the barracks.
April 3 - the beginning of the mass death of domestic animals.
April 3-4 - continuous medical examination and vaccination of the scientific personnel of the military camp No. 19. The military builders who lived on the territory of the camp were not subject to vaccination.
April 4 - arrival from Moscow of the head of the 15th department of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the USSR, Colonel-General E.I. Smirnov, specialists from the USSR Ministry of Health - Deputy Minister of Health, Chief State Sanitary Doctor of the USSR General P.N. Burgasov, as well as the chief infectious disease specialist of the USSR Ministry of Health V.N. Nikiforov. They were sent by the Minister of Health B.V. Petrovsky to fight the epidemic, which the doctors of the affected city did not yet know about.
The evening of April 4, 1979 - the appearance of the first sick and dead civilians, primarily among the workers of the ceramic factory. They ended their lives in the mortuary of the 20th hospital with a diagnosis of pneumonia.
On April 5, 1979, for three weeks, 5 or more civilians died daily in the disaster area. They went through the morgues of the 24th, 20th, 40th and other hospitals. The decline in mortality occurs only in the third decade of April.
April 10, 1979 - the first autopsy performed by civilian doctors in the city hospital No. 40
April 10, 1979 - giving the diagnosis of "cutaneous anthrax" an official status among the civilian medical circles of the city.
April 12, 1979 - the allocation of a building in the 40th city hospital for the organization of a special department with 500 beds - this is the maximum number of patients that were expected at the peak of the epidemic.
April 13, 1979 - the appearance in the newspapers of Sverdlovsk of modest publications warning residents against contracting the skin form of "anthrax" in connection with the consumption of the meat of dead animals.
April 13, 1979 - the beginning of the organized funeral of the dead. They were concentrated in the 15th sector of the Eastern Cemetery. Among the first buried: F.D. Nikolaev (officer of Sverdlovsk-19, born in 1912, it is written on the pedestal that he died on April 9, but it is believed that it was with this person that the count of deaths began).
April 21, 1979 - the beginning of continuous vaccination of the civilian population and disinfection of the territory of the Chkalovsky district and the emergence of a second wave of deaths among civilians.
June 12, 1979 - the death of the last person killed in the area of the "anthrax" epidemic.
The fifteenth sector of the Eastern Cemetery is where the victims of the epidemic are buried.
Data on the number of deaths vary, so according to official figures of the dead, about 100, and not according to unofficial ones - 500 people. The victims of the epidemic were buried at the Eastern Cemetery of Yekaterinburg, in a specially designated sector of the churchyard - No. 15, no one takes away faded plastic wreaths from there (they are burned right there), and in addition to relatives, representatives of the SES of Yekaterinburg, conducting monitoring, are frequent visitors to the graves of the dead epidemiological situation. The dead were buried in coffins filled with a mixture of chlorine and special reagents, without honors.
One of the sheets of the report of American researchers. Pay attention to the sex and age of the victims.
An interesting feature was noted during the epidemic, as it turned out, a virus that got out of control destroys people for some reason selectively: mostly men of mature age, but many women. It is important to keep in mind that some risk groups were not affected during the epidemic. Children did not die at all - not a single child or teenager not only died, but did not even get sick. The statement of General V.I. Evstigneev about the existence of children among the dead is at least not true: the official list prepared by the KGB does not include children. Mortality among the elderly was negligible, but after many years and in the absence of documents, it can no longer be distinguished from natural. Thus, it is possible to formulate a very specific feature of the raging strain of the virus, a feature absolutely not typical of what nature produced - selectivity, the virus “hunted”, only for that category of citizens who, in the event of an armed conflict, could take up arms ...
Reasons for what happened
There was a lot of politics around diagnosing people affected by the epidemic. It would be possible to indicate the degree of danger of a serious illness, place an order for the necessary antibiotics immediately after the discovery of a leak, then the city would be ready, but time was lost, in the hope of hiding everything and chaotic actions on the ground - as it usually happens if something affects the foundations of the strategic interests of the Great Power, then no one pays attention to the "little people".
According to the official version, the epidemic in Sverdlovsk (like most other cases of anthrax infection in the world) was caused by the consumption of meat from infected cattle. But as it turned out later, this version was nothing more than the result of an operation to cover up an ecological disaster organized by the KGB. According to KGB General A.Ya. Mironyuk: “A whole program was developed to misinform public opinion in the country and in the world. They took control of mail and communications. the press. Worked with foreign intelligence. I don’t know if Academician Burgasov was in the know, but he did his part of the “program” perfectly.” It would not be possible if he (an academician and expert on anthrax) was slipped data on “discovery” in “26 settlements along the Chelyabinsk tract connecting Sverdlovsk and Chelyabinsk, .. 27 cases of anthrax in cattle.” Subsequently, the most knowledgeable person, the chief veterinarian of the Sverdlovsk region, denied the legend of the notorious “Chelyabinsk tract”. In Sverdlovsk itself, the cover operation was carried out without much frills. Two weeks after the start of the events, recommendations were given to the press for residents to beware of anthrax infection from the meat of sick animals. A little earlier, colorful posters with a painted cow and the caption “anthrax” appeared on the walls of houses, and that’s all.
Only one person knew about the real background of the events - General E.I. Smirnov, who arrived in Sverdlovsk on April 4 - the head of the 15th department of the General Staff, the owner of Sverdlovsk-19. It was to him that the leadership of the delinquent military biological institute reported the disaster. On the last Friday in March 1979, when the production of anthrax spores was temporarily suspended, one of the laboratory workers removed a dirty filter that prevented the release of spores into the surrounding space. He left a note about this, but did not make the proper journal entry. The supervisor of the next shift turned on the equipment, and only a few hours later noticed that the filter was not installed.
A cloud consisting of deadly spores broke out and through the ventilation system it turned out (the system at that time was not perfect and had access to the environment - approx.) The wind rose was blown south and southeast from the place of release, partially passed over the territory of the nearby military town No. 32, through the Vtorchermet district and the village of a ceramic factory. The 19th town itself did not fall under the ejection cloud. According to the Ural magazine, Andrey Mironyuk, the former head of the special department of the Ural Military District, told a journalist: “In early April, they began to report to me that several soldiers and reserve officers who were training in the 32nd military camp had died. For two weeks we worked out various versions: livestock, food, raw materials for factories, and so on. I asked the head of the 19th campus, which is located next to the 32nd and where there was a military laboratory, for a map of the direction of the winds blowing in those days from this object. They gave it to me. I decided to double-check the data and requested similar information at the Koltsovo airport. Significant discrepancies were found. Then we created operational groups and went the following way: we interviewed the relatives of the dead in detail and literally by hours and minutes, with specific reference to the area, marked on the map the places where the dead were located. So, at a certain time, around 7-8 in the morning, they all ended up in the wind zone from the 19th town. The patient locations stretched in an elongated oval with a long axis of about 4 kilometers - from the military camp to the southern outskirts of the Chkalovsky district, where the population density in 1979 was 10 thousand people per square kilometer. Then people from the KGB connected their equipment to the back office of the laboratory, and we found out the truth. The first outbreak of the ulcer occurred as a result of the negligence of the attendants: one of the laboratory employees came early in the morning and, having started work, did not turn on the protective mechanisms. As a result, the pressure on the "shirt" of the ventilation system increased sharply, the filter burst and released deadly anthrax spores. They fanned out across the territory, where innocent people subsequently began to die. The victims were those who hurried to the town early in the morning to get ready, to work, study, who were on the balcony, on the street, and so on. It is up to scientists to decide whether it was a bacteriological weapon or something else. We knew for sure that the source of the infection was a military laboratory, and its leadership tried to hide this fact. Only after they were pinned to the wall, the experts confessed. It was then that a whole program was developed to misinform public opinion in the country and the world. They took control of mail, communications, and the press. We also worked with foreign intelligence…”.
An interesting feature of the virus was discovered by American researchers who worked with materials about the tragedy after the collapse of the Union. It turned out that the cause of the epidemic was anthrax strains under the code designations: VNTR4 and VNTR6, which are of “western origin” (USA and South Africa, respectively) and are not found anywhere else in the world, as they are a product of biological engineering. As it turned out in these years, intelligence worked extremely actively, acquiring strains of the pathogen virus in foreign research institutes, transferring samples for study to the laboratory of Sverdlovsk-19.
The Research Institute of the Military Biological Center of the USSR Ministry of Defense was known as Sverdlovsk-19 (military unit 47051). The center was established in 1946 on the outskirts of Sverdlovsk to carry out military biological work. There is very little official information about the activities of the center, only the research institutes have worked with many bacteria “suitable” for use as biological weapons (anthrax, plague, tularemia, glanders, melioidosis, ebola, hemarological fever, etc.). When the institute was just created, it was located in the forest, far from the eyes of the townspeople, when over the years it became clear that with the development of the city, residential areas would inevitably approach a dangerous military biological facility, it should have been moved away from housing and closer to some kind of meat processing plant - a source of lamb for the preparation of a nutrient broth for bacteria. But they didn’t transfer the military institute with an extensive infrastructure, it was too troublesome, so they acted differently - not only a meat processing plant was built next to the military camp, but also many other enterprises, including Khimmash. There is also a residential area "Vtorchermet". So Sverdlovsk-19 ended up in the center of a large, Chkalovsky district in a large industrial city. Sverdlovsk-19 is subdivided into three zones as secrecy increases. The creation of biological weapons was carried out in the most inaccessible - the third, special (“working”) zone. The production facilities of the special zone were not located on the surface, but deep underground. The laboratories were looking for new strains of fighting bacteria. Since 1973, scientists have begun to use the achievements of genetic engineering and molecular biology. In the workshops in experimental and industrial reactors (fermenters), stocks of combat bacteria were accumulated. So, the Sverdlovsk-19 military biological center was engaged in at least three types of work: 1) growing new combat strains of dangerous bacteria; 2) the creation of new types of biological munitions, including by order and with the participation of other military biological centers; 3) production of biological weapons. It is also known that Sverdlovsk-19 was part of the strictly classified Biopreparat system, which was engaged in the development and production of biological weapons prohibited by an international convention, to which the USSR joined in 1972.
Of course, there is no specifics about what the Sverdlovsk-19 scientists managed to create. All the work and the results obtained were classified. Information in the public domain is extremely scarce, but it allows you to get a general idea of the secret research institute, in which truly doomsday engineers worked for the benefit of the Soviet Motherland ...
"Biopreparat" (enterprise post box A-1063) is a scientific and production association founded in the Soviet Union in 1973. The main task of the association and its institutions, in addition to the usual production of medical drugs and vaccines, was the secret development of biological weapons. Contrary to the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) Weapons and Toxin Weapons signed by the USSR in 1972, the Biopreparat units in the late 70s and early 80s carried out active research and development of about 50 pathogens. By the end of the 80s. The association released a new type of biological weapon every year, including such dangerous diseases as anthrax, Ebola, Marburg, Lassa, smallpox, typhus, plague, etc.
The resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR on the transfer of industrial production of ammunition with anthrax from Sverdlovsk to Stepnogorsk was adopted in 1981, including because of the 1979 epidemic. In fact, the obligation to produce this type of biological weapon was removed from Sverdlovsk only in 1987, after which the production line was stopped. In the spring of 1988, stocks of weapons based on anthrax and waste from its production were transported to the Aral Sea and buried on Vozrozhdeniye Island.
Conclusion.
The events in Sverdlovsk cannot be called a local tragedy. The anthrax epidemic of 1979 became the largest biological catastrophe of the century on the scale of all mankind. The world has never seen anything like it, a deadly virus, supposedly modified by man, not only found itself at large, taking hundreds of lives, but was also “subdued” by Soviet microbiologists and doctors, who curbed death at the cost of their own lives.
But some researchers refer to the political aspect of what happened. After the events in Sverdlovsk, the USSR proved in practice to the whole world that we not only have bacteriological weapons (despite all the UN prohibitions - ed.), but also the means to control the spread of the virus in open spaces in large population centers, thereby proving by deed its readiness to a large-scale biological warfare and repel a similar threat from the outside ...
Source -In April 1979 I was a student. My wife was a student and already 5 months old.
I remember all those terrible times very well. Hallways filled with chlorine. Soldiers, day and night, digging up the entire open surface. Sprinklers pouring some smelly stuff.
Vaccinations that were given not with a syringe, but with some kind of pistol in the Vtorchermet Palace of Culture. And huge queues for these vaccinations.
I endured the vaccination painlessly, but my wife was not given at all.
But the worst part is the unknown!
And rumors. Either someone died right in the tram, or someone was walking on the street, fell and was not taken.
And we lived just in the zone of infection, a kilometer from the town. How not to get infected, the Almighty alone knows.
Probably because they left home at 7 am and came back at 9 pm, or even later.
And I also remember columns of smoke over the factories Meat Processing Plant, Zhirkombinat and Worsted Combine, which are located nearby and were built specifically for growing some kind of raw material ... According to rumors, all meat products and all wool were burned there with napalm.
There was nothing to buy meat, and the trade in meat and meat products was prohibited in the markets.