[Bacteriological provision of anti-epidemic measures in the zones of a natural disaster in Southern Russia in 2002].

The bacteriological provision of the prophylactic and anti-epidemic measures, taken under the conditions of the unstable sanitary and epidemiological situation which arose as the result of the emergency situation due to the high flood in the Southern Federal District, was carried out by the efforts and means of microbiological laboratories forming a part of the territorial system of observation and laboratory control. On the whole, more than 20,000 samples of water supplied to the population for drinking and household use, more than 10,000 samples of foodstuffs and cooking raw materials were examined in the Southern Federal District during the period of the liquidation of the medico-sanitary consequences of the emergency situation (June-August). To study the epidemic potential of the natural foci of quarantine infections and the probability of the spread of Bacillus anthracis from burial grounds for sick animals, the laboratory capacities of plague-control institutions were used.