MOSCOW, September 14. /TASS/. A single case of plague recently reported by Mongolia is a natural occurrence that poses no threat to Russia, said epidemiologist Gennady Onishchenko, a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
In his words, the disease is circulating among rodents, such as ground squirrels and tarbagan marmots. In Russia, natural sources of the infection are monitored by five anti-plague institutes that control the situation all over the country.
"When the season begins, when the spring comes, ground squirrels will wake up from hibernation, and we will start to study them, to examine their fleas to establish whether they are infected or not. We will monitor mortality among these rodents, who may also fall ill and are prone to sporadic outbreaks. What happened in Mongolia is a residual case, something that happened when the main natural carrier of the disease has already started to hibernate," Onishchenko said.
The expert added that approximately 18,000 residents of Russia’s Kosh-Agach district in south Siberia’s Altai region are vaccinated against plague annually.
"The situation is under control. We monitor sources of the infection, <…> and there are no reasons to panic," he said.
Earlier, Russia’s sanitary watchdog Rospotrebnadzor reported that a man in Mongolia was diagnosed with plague. It said that the risk of the disease spreading to Russia was estimated as minimal.