James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies
Combating the spread of weapons of mass destruction with training & analysis

The 1971 Smallpox Epidemic in Aralsk, Kazakhstan, and the Soviet Biological Warfare Program

Jonathan B. Tucker and Raymond A. Zilinskas, eds.

The Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS) of the Monterey Institute of International Studies today released the first authoritative English translation of an official Soviet report describing a previously unknown outbreak of smallpox in 1971 in the city of Aralsk, Kazakhstan, then located on the northern shore of the Aral Sea.

Updated October 4, 2002.

View the full Occasional Paper as a PDF file.
79 pages, 1.3 MB.

Download a free PDF viewer - Adobe Acrobat Reader

---

Public Health Experts' Commentaries on OP #9:

• Ronald M. Atlas, Ph.D. and Richard Clover, M.D.
  Ronald M. Atlas, Ph.D. Graduate Dean, University of Louisville
  Richard Clover, M.D. Dean of the School of Public Health, University of Louisville
• Janet R. Gilsdorf, M.D.
• Dr. D. A. Henderson
• Dr. Peter B. Jahrling
  Principal Scientific Advisor, U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Disease
• Dr. Serguei Popov
  Senior Scientist, Hadron Corporation and Professor of Biology, George Mason University
• Dr. Jack Woodall
  Director, Nucleus for the Investigation of Emerging Infectious Diseases, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

• Dr. Zelicoff Responds to the Commentaries

• Peter B. Merkle, Ph.D., P.E.
  Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, New Mexico.
  October 3, 2002

Related link: Public Health Experts Comment on Analysis of the 1971 Smallpox Outbreak in the Soviet Union.

We thank Dr. W. Seth Carus for giving us the idea for this section containing commentaries.

Contents

Acknowledgement

Foreword

by Bakyt B. Atshabar

Introduction and Analysis

• Introduction
  by Jonathan B. Tucker and Raymond A. Zilinskas
• An Epidemiological Analysis of the 1971 Smallpox Outbreak in Aralsk, Kazakhstan
  by Alan P. Zelicoff, M.D.

1971 Smallpox Report

• Report on Measures Taken to Contain and Eradicate the Smallpox Outbreak Locale in the City of Aralsk (September/October, 1971)
  by E. Sarynov, Deputy Minister of Health of the Kazakh SSR; B. Kulmakhanov, Director of the Outbreak Containment Locale; and Z. Makatov, Chief of Staff
• Report on Measures Taken to Contain and Eradicate the Smallpox Outbreak Locale in the City of Aralsk, Part II
  by E. Sarynov, Deputy Minister of Health of the Kazakh SSR; and B. Kulmakhanov, Director of the Outbreak Containment Locale
• Autopsy Reports
  by I. Borisov