Assessment of the Current State of the Hissar High-Mountain Natural Plague Focus in the Republic of Tajikistan

Abstract

The review is devoted to discussing the results of survey in the Hissar high-mountain natural plague focus on the territory of the Republic of Tajikistan in 2015–2023. Regular examination of the focus was carried out in 1970–1991. According to its results, the main carrier of the plague pathogen was the juniper vole, in the population of which a strain of the non-main subspecies central asiatica (0.PE4) of Hissar biovar (0.PE4h) was steadily circulating, the strain considered avirulent for humans. During that period, 853 strains were isolated in the focus, of which 799 (93.7%) were from the juniper vole and its fleas. Secondary carriers – the silver vole, the pygmy wood mouse, and the gray hamster – were rarely involved in epizootics. The red marmot, which has epidemiological significance due to its hunting by the local population, occupies a special position in the focus. Socio-political phenomena at the end of the 20th – early 21st century caused a long break in the work of the Tajik Plague Control Station. In 2008, the Station was transformed into the Republican Center for Combating Quarantine Diseases under the Ministry of Health and Social Protection of the Population of the Republic of Tajikistan. In 2015, studies were resumed, but carried out on a small scale. In 2021–2023, epizootiological monitoring in the Hissar focus was performed jointly with Russian specialists with the testing of field material samples for plague and other natural-focal infections. Currently, against the background of low numbers and population density of small mammals and their blood-sucking ectoparasites – potential carriers and vectors of zoonoses – the circulation of agents of plague, tularemia, pseudotuberculosis, tick-borne viral encephalitis, Ixodidae tick-borne borreliosis, human granulocytic anaplasmosis, human monocytic ehrlichiosis has not been registered. Markers (DNA) of causative agents of leptospirosis and intestinal yersiniosis have been identified. Joint Tajik-Russian cooperation on issues of ensuring the epidemiological well-being of the population of the Republic of Tajikistan must be continued.