[Plague in Rostov Province (its history, epidemiology, epizootiology, control measures and prevention)].

In the first third of the twentieth century, the overgrazing of cattle in the eastern districts of the modern Rostov Province yielded deserts in the places of virgin steppes and created favourable conditions for the enlargement of an area for the small souslik, a main carrier of plague in the natural focus of the northwestern Caspian Sea Region. On the above territories, this gave rise to a new natural focus of plague. Its liquidation required many-year goal-oriented efforts of large collective bodies of plaguologists and great material costs. The settlements of small sousliks exist on the above territories today and the activation of a natural focus of plague in the adjacent Kalmykia generate a need for enhancing plague epidemiological surveillance in the eastern districts of the Rostov Province today.