Child Infectious Morbidity in the USSR during the World War II

Abstract

This article presents the results of a historical and medical research reflecting infectious morbidity among children during the Second World War (the Great Patriotic War 19411945). The research, based on archival and literary sources, aims to highlight the situation with infectious morbidity of children in the USSR during the war. The study is relevant because the majority of historical and medical research devoted to the war had been carried out in the Soviet epoch and did not always depict an objective image due to the ideological concepts of that time, which often prohibited the publication of certain information. Inconsiderable in number studies have been conducted on this topic in post-Soviet Russia, yet are selective or localized. A review of a wide range of sources provides an independent perspective on the dramatic situation concerning the significant increase of childhood infections during the war both in the occupied territory and in the regions of childrens evacuation. As a result of systemic control measures carried out by central and regional public health services, childhood infections had not become endemic. Despite the rising number of tuberculosis cases, sexually transmitted diseases, and malaria in the early years of the war, further spread of the socially significant pathologies was prevented.