Биопрепараты: Профилактика, диагностика, лечение (Feb 2018)
The role of Russian and Soviet scientists in the development of anthrax vaccines
Abstract
In Russia in the second half of the XIX century research schools, developing anthrax vaccines for agriculture were formed. Their level was highly competitive with the Western analogues. At the end of the 1930 Soviet military scientists were the first in the world to create the anthrax vaccine for medical use on the basis of the spores of unencapsulated live strains of B. anthracis. In the 1940-1960-ies Russian scientists determined the principles of the development of anthrax vaccines, which allowed to avoid failures of their Western colleagues, when developing the vaccines capable of protecting the population from biological weapons with anthrax spores as the harmful agent. Russian military scientists in the 1990s managed to keep the vaccine strains of anthrax bacteria and restore the technological capability for their manufacture, which helps to protect the population of the Russian Federation from natural anthrax outbreaks and from biological terror. At a time when there is a need in creating immunity in humans against infection caused by inhalation of anthrax spores, the most reasonable decision for the upcoming decades is to use the domestic combined vaccine that combines unencapsulated live strains of Bacillus anthracis and anthrax toxin protective antigen.
