Epizootological assessment of the possibilities of importing plague from Vietnam to Russia

: To assess whether the plague microbe with vectors or carriers can be imported from Vietnam to Russia, the authors consider the specific features of pathogen circulation in this country's biotopes varying in anthropogenic transformation. The idea that there were natural foci of plague in Vietnam dominated until the late 1990s. The small rat Rattus exulans that inhabits open stations and ensures a parasitic contact with the synanthropic representatives of the fauna was considered to be a major carrier. The recent years have provided conclusive proofs that plague foci are absent in Vietnam wild nature. Anthropurgic foci develop in the network of localities whose conditions are favorable to the existence of synanthropic rodents and the fleas Xenopsylla cheopis. Cases of the plague pathogen, FI antigen and its antibodies being detected in wild mammals are due to their parasitic contacts with synanthropic rats in the agrocultural area around the localities with running epizootias. These contacts are provided by X.cheopis only. Since 2003, there have been no reports on the incidence of human plague or its pathogen isolation from environmental objects in Vietnam. However, all conditions and prerequisites for the formation ofanthropurgic plague foci remain in this country. Further epizootological monitoring is required for appropriate services to rapidly and adequately respond if the epizootological or epidemiological situation of this infection changes.