ИСТИНА

The Arctic region belongs to areas with an extreme natural environment. The most important components of the natural environment that determine its extremeness are geochemical, biotic, and climatic factors. At the same time, the climatic component of the extreme natural conditions is considered as prevailing in comparison with the others, since it affects human and animal organisms more intensively, as well as due to the scale of the territories it covers. The climate determines the structure of the incidence of both the indigenous and the non-indigenous populations, while the latter who moved to the northern regions from the south is more susceptible to various diseases, having no innate adaptations for living in high latitudes, in contrast to the indigenous peoples. In connection with the intensive development of natural resources in the Arctic, a special place is occupied by natural focal infections, the pathogens of which inhabit the natural environment. The most important problems of the Arctic regions from a medico-geographical point of view are the following: (1) adaptation of indigenous people and newcomers to the harsh climatic conditions of the environment; (2) difficulties in supplying medicines and providing medical care in the hard-to-reach Arctic regions; (3) climate changes and associated landscape modifications, leading, inter alia, to changes in the spread of natural focal diseases, as well as diseases transmitted through food and water; (4) the emergence of new and recurring infections among indigenous and newcomers. Thus, diseases caused by live pathogens play an important role in shaping the health level of the population of the Arctic regions. For them, the most important in the epidemiological and medico-geographical terms are brucellosis, tularemia, anthrax, trichinosis, opisthorchiasis, alveococcosis, and rabies. The question of the possible penetration of hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome into the northern regions in connection with the advance of the bank vole range to the north, as well as tick-borne encephalitis and ixodid tick-borne borreliosis in connection with the possible expansion of the taiga tick range is discussed.