[About development of All-Russian Service for Disaster Medicine at the present stage].

The information about foundation, development and main areas of activity of All-Russian Service for Disaster Medicine is given. Almost 20 years professional staff members help to save lives and health of people injured in emergency situations in Russia and other countries. There are 81 territorial centers for disaster medicine. The main center is All-Russian center for disaster medicine Zaschita. Its organizational structure, performance indexes including development of information and communication technology, telehealth, organization of firs-aid in a traffic collision are considered. The main ways of improvement of the whole service for disaster medicine including service for disaster medicine of Ministry of Defense are shown.

[The activity of the ad hoc commission on "The Problems of Human Protection under Extreme Conditions": results and prospects]. / Itogi i perspektivy deiatel'nosti problemnoi komissii "Problemy zashchity cheloveka v ékstremal'nykh usloviiakh".

The paper summarizes the results of 10-year activity of the ad hoc commission on "The Problems of Human Protection under Extreme Conditions" of the Interdepartmental Scientific Council on Human Ecology and Environmental Hygiene, Russian Academy of Medical Sciences. It shows the work of the Commission on Planning, Organization, and Coordination of Researches in the Development and Introduction of New Human Protective Agents and Means from Exposures to Chemical, Physical, and Biological Agents under Extreme Conditions. The prospects of the Commission's work have been defined for the coming 5 years, by taking into account the priority lines of development of science, technology, engineering in the Russian Federation.

[Medical consequences of earthquakes and organization of their liquidation (Communication II)]. / Meditsinskie posledstviia zemletriasenii i organizatsiia ikh likvidatsii (Soobshchenie vtoroe).

The main factor determining the size of sanitary losses (SL) and the share of injuries with different degree of severity is intensity of earthquake. At the same time dependence of SL structure on the types of populated area (including the peculiarities of their building) and the character of population allocation at the moment of earthquake is rather small. It allows to substantiate the common medical-and-evacuation indices of the casualties for the given intensity of earthquake. The normative indices given in the article are of reference significance and depending on concrete situation require closer definition.

[The All-Russian Disaster Medicine Service]. / Vserossiiskaia sluzhba meditsiny katastrof.

Theoretical bases of creation, stages of development, normative-and-legal base, structure and problems of a All-Russia service of disaster medicine are stated. In article some questions about experience of rendering of the medical aid to the injured in the extreme situations (North Caucus region, Sakhalin, Budenovsk, Irkutsk), training of personnel, creation of reserves of medical property for extreme situations, organization of service management are submitted. The federal program "Perfection of All-Russia service of disaster medicine on 1997-2001 years" is considered in detail.

[Antimicrobial means for individual protection used by medical personnel in emergency situations]. / Antimikrobnye sredstva individual'noi zashchity, ispol'zuemye meditsinskim personalom pri chrezvychainykh situatsiiakh.

For protection of medical staff from infections during emergencies, the authors recommend individual antimicrobial means--medical gowns and special suits protecting skin against extremely dangerous causal agents, surgical masks and individual means with autonomous air supply for lower intake of bacteria.

[The prognostic estimation of the medical consequences of chemical accidents for the population and the troops]. / Prognosticheskaia otsenka meditsinskikh posledstvii khimicheskikh avarii dlia naseleniia i voisk.

The article describes the methodology which makes it possible to evaluate probable irretrievable losses among personnel and population taking into account the structure and dynamics of the disaster factor, as well as the following data: the time of detection and warning notice about contamination with strong noxious toxic substances (SNTS), availability of individual and collective protection against chemical agents for troops and population, toxic dosage of SNTS, acceptable time of safety gas masking, estimated defeated time of gas mask due to lack of oxygen inside SNTS cloud, evaluation of territory contamination by different SNTS if several chemical cisterns were destroyed, etc.

[Methods for the preparation and performance of research in areas with emergency situations]. / Metodika podgotovki i provedeniia nauchnykh issledovanii v raionakh chrezvychainykh situatsii.

On the basis of the experience of liquidation of medical consequences in the zones of emergency the authors came to a conclusion that organizational and clinical aspects of the Disaster Medicine had to be studied more profoundly, including the realization of scientific and practical researches immediately at the zones of crisis situations. The article contains methodics for scientific experiments, as well as various methods of work for scientists at the zones of emergency. This material can be used during organization and carrying out of tactico-special exercises with rescue teams and special medical units, and also for realization of scientific researches immediately at the zones of crisis, with further analysis of data in order to elaborate practical recommendations for the improvement of medical support of troops and civilian population during calamities and disasters.