[Genetic identification of rickettsiae of the tick-borne spotted fever group, isolated in the foci of tick-borne rickettsiosis]. / Geneticheskaia identifikatsiia rikketsii gruppy kleshchevoi piatnistoi likhoradki, izolirovannykh v ochagakh kleshchevogo rikketsioza.

A total of 25 rickettsial cultures of the tick-borne spotted fever (TBSF) group from the collection of the Research Institute of Infections in Omsk, isolated from different sources in the territory of the Russian Federation (from the Urals to the Far East) during the period of 1954-2001) were studied by the methods of genetic analysis. The fragments of the gene coding the outer-membrane protein of 190 kD (ompA) and synthetase citrate (gltA) of the rickettsiae under the study were sequenced. 23 isolates were identified as R. sibirica, among them 3 isolates obtained from patients, 16 isolates obtained from Dermacentor ticks, 2 isolates from Haemaphysalis concinna and 2--from Ixodes persulcatus. The strain Primorye 32/84, isolated from D. silvarum ticks in the Far East and earlier identified as S. sibirica by the results of the PCR-RFLP analysis proved to be a genovariant Rickettsia spBJ-90, i.e. close to this species. Strain Karpunino 19/69, isolated in the Kurgan region, was identified as R. slovaca. The results obtained extended our notions of the spectrum of rickettsiae group TBSF in Russia as well as their vectors.

[Regional epidemiologic characteristics of combined foci of tick-borne encephalitis, endemic rickettsioses and leptospirosis in Western Siberia]. / Landshaftno-épidemiologicheskaia kharakteristika sochetannykh ochagov kleshchevogo éntsefalita, éndemicheskikh rikketsiozov i leptospirozov v Zapadnoi Sibiri.

The authors carried out complex study of combined foci of infections with natural foci in Western Siberia and their reflection in human pathology. The results of serological examination of 5917 persons and of 1743 of farm animals in respect to tick-borne encephalitis, Asian tick-borne rickettsiosis, Q-rickettsiosis, and leptospiroses are analysed. Affection of the population with all the four infections in all the landscape zones under study was shown; the intensity of this affection with different infections differed. Combined natural foci of the mentioned infections were found to be widespread; epidemiological significance of such combination was unequal in different ladscapes, this depending on the ladscape characteristics of the natural foci of infections under study and of different ways of transmission of their causative agents.

[New findings concerning the spread of natural foci of infection in the transpolar region of eastern Siberia]. / Novye dannye o rasprostranenii prirodnoochagovykh infektsii v Zapoliar'e Vostochnoi Sibiri

New materials are presented on the presence of the foci of anthropozoonozes in the Extreme North. For the first time there was established the existence in the subarctic tundra of the Taimyr peninsula of the arbovirus foci of the tick-borne encephalitis complex. A virus of the tick-borne encephalitis complex was isolated in 1973 from the gamasida ticks Haemogamasus ambulans Thorel. and Hirstionyssus isabellinus Oudms. and the nests of the Siberian lemming Lemmus lemmus L. This pointed to the existence in the Transpolar region of the foci or arboviruses in the nest-hole biocenoses of the lemmings outside the bird colonies. Cultures of tularemia bacilli (which proved the etiology of the epizootic among the lemmings observed in 1973 and also the presence of the lemming natural foci of tularemia and their combination with the arbovirus foci) were isolated from the lemmings at the same territory. The results of serological examination of the local population and of the animals pointed to the circulation in the Transpolar region of the causative agents of leptospirosis, toxoplasmosis, Q-fever and of the Asian tick-borne rickettsiosis.