Today, when the whole world is fighting the coronavirus, the topic of epidemics worries everyone. Before the real danger, we forget that more than once humanity was on the verge of mass extinction from such terrible diseases as cholera, smallpox, Ebola, etc. People were able to prevent their victorious march. But the case of 1959, when the USSR quickly coped with the spread of smallpox, still remains unprecedented.
Fatal trip
Smallpox has not been heard in the USSR since 1936, when the authorities officially announced that this ancient and terrible disease was over forever. And all over the world they were able to cope with it by that time, except that in Asia and Africa, she still killed people. To prevent infection and spread of infection, every Soviet citizen traveling to these parts of the world had to be vaccinated against smallpox.
In 1959, a Soviet artist, poster maker, twice winner of the Stalin Prize, 53-year-old Alexei Kokorekin, was going to visit Africa and, in this regard, was vaccinated. True, there is an assumption that the vaccination was not carried out, while the mark was put down. For some reason, the trip was canceled, and a few months later Kokorekin went with a delegation of Soviet artists to India, a country where smallpox was at home.
Since Kokorekin was not only an artist, but also an inquisitive person, he tried to visit more interesting places, including the city of the dead, Varanasi. There he attended the ritual burning of the Brahmin. Making sketches, he came very close to the body. In India, it was customary to sell the belongings of the deceased, and after the funeral, the artist bought a carpet that belonged to a Brahmin. No one spoke about the cause of death of the Indian, and it was tactless to ask. It was later suggested that the Brahmin most likely died of smallpox.
On the 20th of December, Kokorekin returned to Moscow with gifts, a day earlier than expected. He had a mistress, to whom he immediately went from the airport. After spending the night with a friend, he waited for the next flight from Delhi and went home. A few days before the New Year, he managed to present all his friends and relatives with Indian souvenirs.
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A bolt from the blue
And soon he went to bed with a high temperature. In the polyclinic where he applied, they diagnosed him with the flu and began to treat him, but to no avail. So two days later the artist was in the hospital. Doctors believed that the rash that appeared on the patient's body was an allergy to drugs. Despite the efforts of doctors, on December 29, 1959, Kokorekin died. The death of such a famous person demanded a thorough medical investigation, because the attending doctors could not accurately name its cause.
There is evidence of how doctors were able to get to the bottom of the truth. Surgeon Yuri Shapiro wrote that when the artist's body was dissected, pathologist Nikolai Kraevsky was very puzzled by the results. At that time, his 75-year-old colleague from Leningrad was in Moscow. When he saw the affected tissue, he categorically stated that it was definitely smallpox. The message shocked not only the pathologist, but the entire management of the hospital where the patient died. The fact is that by that time smallpox had become the past too long ago, and many doctors simply did not know how to recognize it.
Nevertheless, all doctors had a good idea of what would happen if an epidemic of this disease began in the USSR, which could destroy up to 90% of the population. After all, it is transmitted from person to person very quickly, and there is no medicine as such for this disease.
Almost 27 thousand medical workers were attracted to vaccinate the population of Moscow and the region, more than 3 thousand vaccination points were opened. 8,500 vaccination teams worked.
Fast reaction
As it turned out later, several patients and hospital staff caught the smallpox. They had a fever, cough, and characteristic skin rashes. Already on the second day after the death of the artist, the smallpox virus was found in a woman from the staff of the admission department, who took him to the hospital. An insidious virus made its way through the ventilation to the lower floor of the hospital and there, too, did its dirty work: a teenager, whose bed was under the ventilation hole, became infected.
Kokorekin undoubtedly communicated with a huge number of people after his arrival. He gave them gifts and simply shared his impressions of the trip. In addition, at the very beginning, on suspicion of influenza, he was admitted to the ward for influenza. Relatives and friends of the tourist fell ill. Kokorekin's wife and mistress, without saying a word, handed over the gifts he brought to a thrift store, which also increased the number of potential smallpox victims. The stoker, who worked in the hospital, only had to walk past Kokorekin's ward to become infected.
Specialists from the Research Institute of Vaccines and Serums, based on a sample taken from the patient's skin, confirmed that it was smallpox. It was necessary to urgently take action. On January 15, 19 people were diagnosed with a terrible disease. From day to day in Moscow a real pestilence could begin.
The hospital has been quarantined. No one was supposed to leave its territory: not a few thousand patients, not 5 thousand personnel.
To prevent the epidemic, all possible forces were involved: the KGB, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the army, the Ministry of Health, etc. All contacts of the patient were identified from the moment he got on the plane in Delhi and until the last day of his life, not only people close to the artist, but also those with whom he was just crossed paths: customs officers, a taxi driver, a district doctor and all his patients, the staff of the clinic, the passengers of the plane in which he was returning from Delhi, fellow students of his daughter, etc. It turned out that one of his friends was on a plane en route to Paris. The plane was deployed in the air, and all passengers were quarantined. An acquaintance of Kokorekin was taken to the hospital directly from the university, where she was taking exams at that moment. And along with her, about 100 people were also quarantined. The next day, all sellers, buyers and visitors to the consignment shops were identified and quarantined. Souvenirs,brought by the artist, burned. The capital was closed, all paths to it, both ground and air, were blocked.
In total, 9342 contacts took place in the "case", of which only 1500 were primary, and they were quarantined. The rest, as they say now, were in self-isolation for two weeks, and doctors visited them twice a day.
Simultaneously with the identification of the infected, they began to produce a smallpox vaccine. Almost 27 thousand medical workers were attracted to vaccinate the population of Moscow and the region, more than 3 thousand vaccination points were opened. 8,500 vaccination teams worked. By the end of January, more than 5.5 million Muscovites and 4 million residents of the Moscow region were vaccinated. This was probably the largest operation in such a short time in the history of vaccination.
The last patient was registered on February 3. It took only 44 days to eliminate the epidemic. During this time, 45 people fell ill, of which 3 died.
Terrible harvests …
No matter how beautifully death is called, it always inspires fear. For many centuries Variola vera, in other words, smallpox claimed hundreds of thousands of human lives. In 737, 30% of the Japanese population died from this disease. In Europe, since the 6th century, every year she has gathered her terrible harvest - tens, hundreds of thousands of people. Devastated entire cities. When smallpox, together with the conquistadors, reached America, it decimated the indigenous population. By the beginning of the 19th century, Europe was losing 1.5 million people annually from this disease. Russia has not escaped a sad fate. People of different classes were sick with smallpox. Emperor Peter II died from her, Peter III almost died. Smallpox also left traces on Stalin's face.
During the reign of Catherine the Great, vaccination began in Russia, and the Empress was the first to be vaccinated. But the population was wary of this method. In order to vaccinate at least in cities, the police had to resort to help. In 1919 the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR adopted the decree "On compulsory vaccination." There are very few people who managed to avoid vaccination. And the result was not long in coming. In 1929, a little more than 6 thousand people fell ill with smallpox, and in 1936 it was officially announced that there was no more smallpox in the USSR.
Magazine: All the riddles of the world №10. Author: Galina Belyshev