Up to 10% of the population becomes carriers of meningitis, or meningococcal infection, in modern Russia every year, but only three per 100 thousand people fall ill with this dangerous disease. All thanks to our immune system, which meningitis is not able to break through. However, a few decades ago, things were not so rosy.
Meningococcal disease has always remained a mystery to Soviet epidemiologists. It tormented the USSR throughout almost its entire history, and each time the epidemic was fought for a long time, costly - and, alas, ineffectively. The disease disappeared as suddenly as it appeared, leaving scientists in complete confusion - what was it and what to do about it?
What is known about meningitis today? This is a deadly disease that affects the brain and back - more precisely, their soft shells, the most unprotected area. At the same time, it is also a very insidious disease, since in the early stages it mimics the common cold and flu.
Meningitis is also called the "landfill disease" - it is one hundred percent likely to appear where there are unsatisfactory living and living conditions. In this regard, it seems not surprising that the disease was widespread in the Soviet Union in the 1930-1940s.
Construction sites are to blame for everything
For the first time in Russia, meningitis was discovered back in tsarist times, under Alexander II. But then the disease did not take on the proportions of an epidemic. It also carried over in 1917-1919, when the revolutionary events overshadowed health issues.
Then the era of big projects of communism began, when huge numbers of the population left the cities and went to socialist construction sites throughout the country. At the same time, they had to live in more than modest conditions, when there could be no question of a normal life. One should also take into account the huge number of GULAG prisoners who lived in barracks and did not know the minimum amenities. It was then that the first massive outbreak of meningococcal disease occurred. Only one figure speaks of the scale of the epidemic: 50 cases per 100 thousand people. Compared to the three of today, this was colossal. And in conditions when doctors did not even know what they were facing, the mortality rate among the sick was 90%.
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The situation was aggravated by the war, which worsened the already poor living conditions on a vast territory. A paradoxical role in the subsequent stop of the epidemic was played by large human casualties among the military and civilian population - there was simply no one to get sick. As a result, the occurrence of meningitis was attributed to mistakes with the organization of accommodation during industrialization. This conclusion was confirmed by the fact that the disease did not manifest itself for a long time.
New wave
Everything changed in the 1960s, when a new epidemic of meningococcal infection covered the Soviet Union. The lack of success in the fight against the disease in the 1930s-1940s played a cruel joke - as then, the doctors did not understand what they were facing. Moreover, it was no longer possible to blame the new outbreak on poor sanitary conditions - there was no war, as a result of the post-Stalin amnesty, half of the Gulag prisoners were released, and living conditions at the "large construction sites of communism" were largely improved. So now it was impossible not only to build a competent treatment program, but even to establish the source of infection - after all, unlike many other diseases, meningitis always “lives” in a person, and it is not known who exactly will become patient zero next time.
The epidemic of the 1960s was a real test for the Soviet health care system. The mortality rate was 30%, none of the existing vaccines had the desired effect, and by some miracle, people who managed to recover were disabled for the rest of their lives. We had to cope with the disaster for three whole years using standard quarantine measures - the sick were simply isolated, but it was almost impossible to help them.
Soviet scientists were never able to solve the mystery of meningitis outbreaks. Only in 1997, when a new rise in the number of cases began, Russian epidemiologists established that both then, in the USSR, and now, meningococcal infection did not arise within the country, but came either from China or from Vietnam. And since this pathogen was fundamentally new for the population, the immune system turned out to be unprepared to fight the disease. Considering that in the 1990s, our markets were literally flooded with goods from the Middle Kingdom, it seems not surprising that the infection unfolded with renewed vigor.
Fortunately, this time a foreign vaccine came to the rescue, which had previously been tested in Vietnam and showed good results there - a new epidemic did not arise. Since then, there have been no large outbreaks of meningitis similar to the Soviet ones in the Russian Federation.
Magazine: Mysteries of History №21