What caused an outbreak of smallpox in Moscow in 1959, and how they managed to defeat it

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

For his creative propaganda work, confidently guiding society in a correctly chosen course, the artist Kokorekin was endowed in Moscow with preferences that few people had then. Aleksey Alekseevich was allowed to visit abroad. At the end of 1959, along with gifts to his loved ones, he brought Muscovites a long-forgotten medieval smallpox. The unprecedented swift measures taken by the Moscow authorities and services made it possible to instantly stop the spread of one of the world's worst diseases.

Historical epidemiological situation with smallpox in Russia and the first vaccination

The first effective fight against smallpox was begun in Russia by Empress Catherine the Great, who taught the country to be vaccinated by her personal example. In 18th century Russia, every seventh child died from smallpox. By the end of the century, all students of the cadet corps, who had not had smallpox until that moment, were subject to variolation. But despite the fact that Catherine even issued a decree on the strict vaccination, vaccination received mass distribution only by 1801.

In 1815, a smallpox vaccination committee was founded, and the Free Economic Society was involved in the promotion of vaccination. Its members sent smallpox matter around the country, supervised the preparation of smallpox vaccines, distributed brochures in both Russian and foreign languages. Later, the functions of smallpox vaccination were transferred to the zemstvo institutions. However, by the beginning of the Great October Revolution, mandatory vaccination had not yet been introduced, which affected the mortality rate among those infected with smallpox.

Indian funeral and death upon arrival

At the end of December 1959, a plane landed at Vnukovo airport with the artist Kokorekin among the passengers. Alexey returned from India the day before the planned date, went through border and customs control and went to his mistress. He was a little worried about a cough, but the state of a mild cold in the Moscow winter did not alert him. Having presented his passion with exotic gifts, the next morning he went home to his wife and loved ones, who also brought many foreign presents.

Meanwhile, Kokorekin's condition worsened, a fever appeared, and he was forced to seek medical help. After examination, the man was urgently hospitalized in the infectious diseases department, and died the next morning. At the autopsy of the body, by coincidence, there was an experienced virologist, Academician Morozov, who immediately announced a terrible sentence: death as a result of infection with smallpox. After operational investigations, it turned out that the artist had visited India in order to study the local culture.

Curiosity and professional interest led him to the ritual of burning a local brahmana who had died of smallpox. Kokorekin, undertaking to sketch the process from nature, most likely touched the things that belonged to the deceased. And since the incubation period of the smallpox virus in the human body is about two weeks, immediately before returning home, he did not even suspect that he had contracted a dangerous disease.

The first infected and the plane turn right in the sky

The whole seriousness of the situation emerged two days later: smallpox was diagnosed by an employee of the Botkin registry, who received a sick artist, who was examining his doctor, and even a teenager who was located in the hospital on the floor below (apparently, the infection was transmitted through the ventilation duct). A week later, suspicious symptoms appeared in several more patients at the same hospital. The material taken from the skin of one of them was sent for research to the research institute, from where the expected answer came: the variola virus. The information was immediately conveyed to the top leadership, realizing that not only the capital, but the entire USSR was under the threat of a dangerous epidemic. On the same day, at a meeting with the first secretary, a set of urgent measures was approved.

The KGB was charged with the task of identifying in a matter of hours all those who had contact with the artist from the moment of his landing in India. Within a couple of weeks, Kokorekin managed to communicate with more than one thousand people, who seemed to be unrealistic to identify. The Ministry of Internal Affairs, the KGB and the Ministry of Health isolated everyone who could even potentially intersect with an infected person. One of these turned out to be a teacher at the institute, who took exams after dozens of students. It was decided to declare quarantine throughout the university. The goal was to destroy all the gifts brought by the artist from India, which the enterprising owners smashed to the thrift stores. But within 24 hours, sellers and visitors to thrift stores were identified and quarantined, and the Indian goods themselves were burned.

Thousands of patients and attendants at the Botkin Hospital, where Kokorekin died, were forbidden to leave the walls of the medical facility. In the direction of Moscow, their reserve depots set off convoys by truck with the necessary provisions. And in the European sky, they even turned a plane heading for Paris, one of the passengers of which was an acquaintance of Kokorekin.

Closed Moscow and victory over infection

The capital in the blink of an eye switched to the laws of wartime. Moscow has canceled all air and rail links, and all highways have been blocked. Reinforced medical teams traveled around the clock to the addresses of suspicious patients, delivering them to the infectious diseases wards. In total, about 10 thousand people were in isolated inpatient wards during the week. The only possible way to stop the virus and save hundreds of thousands of Muscovites was considered prompt vaccination. Millions of doses of special serum were delivered here from all over the country.

They stabbed everyone: the indigenous people who came to the city for the New Year's weekend. Vaccination points worked non-stop in factories, factories, offices, train stations and streets. Ural pharmaceutical companies have been rapidly producing the vaccine in large volumes. More than 9 million people were vaccinated within a week and a half. This turned out to be an unprecedented action in the whole world of vaccination of the population, not only in scale, but also in terms of timing. As a result, 45 people were infected with smallpox, three of whom died. The outbreak was stopped in less than 3 weeks.

Not everyone remembers how smallpox got rid of its last victim.