Medical and biological consequences of terrorism in Russia and worldwide (2005-2018)

Abstract

Relevance . Terrorist threats in the world are numerous, therefore biomedical consequences of terrorist attacks should be studied, along with their prevention. Intention . Analyze the biomedical consequences of terrorism in Russia and worldwide in 2005-2018 and calculate scientometric indicators of articles in the field of terrorism indexed in the Russian Science Index and Scopus. Methodology . The registered terrorist attacks and their biomedical consequences were studied in the world and in Russia according to the Global Terrorism Index, the EMERCOM and the Russian Ministry of Health. The abstract-bibliographic databases of the Russian Science Citation Index and Scopus were searched for journal scientific articles and whether these articles were considered relevant by readers. Results and Discussion. In 2005-2018 annually (8.1 ± 1.3) thousand terrorist attacks were registered in the world with (19.2 ± 3.4) thousand fatalities, including the terrorists themselves, and sanitary losses amounted to (25.4 ± 2.9) thousand people. In the period under study, these indicators tended to increase. On average, there were (2.4 ± 0.2) dead and (3.7 ± 0.4) injured per 1 terrorist attack in the world. The average annual economic damage from terrorism amounted to (51.7 ± 7.9) billion US dollars. According to the EMERCOM of Russia, in 2005-2017 (there were no terrorist attacks in 2018) 57 major terrorist attacks were recorded, in which 366 people were killed and 1717 people were injured. On average, 6-7 people died and 30 people were injured per 1 major terrorist attack. The ratio of dead and injured was 1 : 4.7. Over the same period, according to the Russian Ministry of Health, 1,100 terrorist attacks were recorded, in which 898 people died and 4,860 people were injured. On average, 1 person was killed and 4-5 people were injured per terrorist attack. The ratio of fatalities and injured was 1 : 5.4. A decrease in the number of terrorist attacks, irrevocable and sanitary losses is noted. Injured with extremely severe injuries due to terrorist attacks amounted to 8.1 %, severe - 18.2 %, moderate - 30.4 %, mild injuries - 43.4 %. Over time, there is a decrease in the proportion of extremely severe and severe conditions of injured, relative stabilization of the proportion of moderate conditions, and an increase in mild conditions. It is necessary to continue work on coordination of registration of emergencies in the EMERCOM of Russia and the Ministry of Health of Russia to improve reservation of funds to eliminate their consequences. The search in the Russian Science Citation Index and Scopus revealed 18,334 and 12,836 scientific articles, respectively, including 4,200 and 151 publications on biomedical consequences of terrorist attacks, over 2005-2018. There is a high demand for articles on the biomedical consequences of terrorism in Scopus: 81.5 % of publications were cited at least once, the average number of citations per article was 15.31. In the Russian Science Citation Index the scientometric indices were much smaller - 44.4 % and 1.70, respectively. Conclusion. The analysis of publications showed that use of medium and high power ionizing radiation sources, toxic chemical and biological agents in terrorist acts in the world is possible only if they are stolen from state organizations or if they are transferred by state organizations to third parties. At the same time, it should be noted that in the modern world, none of the countries, including Russia, can be recognized as adequately prepared to confront nuclear (radiological), chemical and biological terrorism. The most likely counteraction to such terrorist attacks are international conventions on the production, control and non-proliferation of highly toxic agents in the world. Databases of the Russian Science Index and Scopus open up great information to researchers on the study of terrorism. In addition to improving the innovative content of domestic articles, Russian scientists should include more citations from colleagues.