ABSTRACT
The number of inhabitants of the Russian North exceeds 12 million. Food-borne zoonotic helminthiases – Opisthorchis felineus infection, trichinellosis, Diphyllobothrium dendriticum, D. luxi (D. klebanovskii ) infections, endemic D. latum infection, northern isolate of Taenia saginatus infection, and echinococcoses are the most widespread parasitic infections of the Russian North. One and a half million of human cases of opisthorchiasis exist in Russia. No direct correlation has been found between the intensity of egg output and the severity of infection. Acute opisthorchiasis (unknown till the 1960s of the past century) has been registered among non-immune newcomers to the endemic foci. The ‘selective-radical’ therapy with praziquantel in endemic foci of infection begun in the middle of the 1980s gave optimistic results. Outbreaks of trichinellosis in newcomers to Arctic and Subarctic regions have been registered in the late 1950s. Thalarctos maritimus and Ursus arctos meat accounted for these outbreaks. In 1976-1977, 47.6% of trichinellosis cases registered in Russia were from the North, only 5.5% were registered in 1996 and 22% in 2000. Echinococcus granulosus and E. multilocularis infections have been registered in the Russian North from the early 1930s with 58.1-64.2% predominance of the latter. Foci of E. multilocularis infection are developing in Kamchatka recently. Diphyllobothrium dendriticum accounts for five-sixths of human cases in mixed D. latum and D. dendriticum foci in the North. The mean prevalence of enterobiasis in children in 1995-1996 was 25.7%. Cases of ascariasis and giardiasis are registered. Malaria that in the 1920s of the past century was registered up to Arkhangelsk is now absent, but imported cases are registered regularly.
