Up-to-date concentrations of long-lived artificial radionuclides in the Tom and Ob rivers in the area influenced by discharges from Siberian chemical combine.

The Siberian Chemical Combine (SCC) is located in Seversk (formerly known as Tomsk-7) in the Tomsk Region of the Russian Federation. The main contribution of radionuclides in the SCC process water discharged into the Tom River was from the single-pass reactors, now removed from service (the last SCC reactor was shutdown on June 5, 2008). The data on the concentrations of (90)Sr, (137)Cs, (239,240)Pu and other artificial radionuclides in water, bottom sediments and flood-plain soils of the Tom and Ob rivers from Tomsk to the confluence of the rivers, are presented and discussed.

The current content of artificial radionuclides in the water of the Tobol-Irtysh river system (from the mouth of the Iset River to the confluence with the Ob River).

Data on content of (90)Sr, (137)Cs, (239,240)Pu and (3)H in water of the Tobol-Irtysh part of the Techa-Iset-Tobol-Irtysh-Ob river system (through which the "Mayak" PA radioactive wastes are transported) are presented and discussed. The data were received in 2004-2005 under the ISTC project on radioecological monitoring of the Tobol and Irtysh rivers. Monthly observations of (137)Cs, (90)Sr and (3)H content in water in the area of the Tobol and Irtysh confluence have been conducted starting from May 2004.

[Specific immune complexes and neutrophil injury test in the diagnosis of experimental glanders and melioidosis].

The authors have demonstrated the possibility of using solid-phase enzyme immunoassay to detect specific circulating immune complexes without their preliminary separation in guinea pigs infected with Pseudomonas mallei and Pseudomonas pseudomallei. They have examined the prospects of using neutrophil injury test and solid-phase enzyme immunoassay for the detection of specific immune complexes as additional tests used to predict the outcome of an infectious process in glanders and melioidosis.

[Yersinia pestis L-forms in rodents and ectoparasites].

Y. pestis L-forms and bacterial forms persist in the body of great gerbils for 40 days. L-forms are poorly phagocytized and can persist in phagocytes for a long time.

[Antibodies to polysaccharides of group A Streptococcus in patients with rheumatism after mitral commissurotomy].

Gel precipitation was employed to detect antibodies to the A-polysaccharide specific antigenic determinant in blood serum of 131 patients with different versions of rheumatic fever. 21 patients with non-rheumatic myocarditis, 25 convalescents following quinsy, and 58 donors. It was established that high titers of antibodies to A-polysaccharide in patients with protracted and latent rheumatic fever correlate with the clinical and morphological signs of the process activity.

[Isolation of L-form of Yersinia pestis from wild rodents in an epizootic focus].

Four Y. pestis cultures with unbalanced growth and 15 Y. pestis cultures in unstable L-forms were isolated from wild rodents Rhombomys opimus in the vicinity of lake Balkhash.

[Production of L forms of the plague microbe].

Experiments were conducted in vitro. The process of formation of unstable L-form cultures of Pasteurella pestis under the effect of penicillin was studied. A comparatively high frequency of this phenomenon in various strains was demonstrated.

[Pathogenicity of nonagglutinating vibrios].

In studying the pathogenicity of nonagglutinating vibrios it was established that the majority of the strains isolated from the patients suffering from enteritis possessed enteropathogenic properties which were revealed in the trials on nursling rabbits and on the isolated intestinal loop a of an adult rabbit. In difference to the cholera vibryos, these microorganisms produced no typical cholerogenicity syndrome expressing, however, a number of enteropathogenic properties: caused diarrhea, overfilling of the intestine with fluid, etc. Autopsy showed a typical enterocolitis picture, confirmed by histological studies.