Gennadiy N. Lepeshkin: I didn't quite get that--why was the use of tularemia important, something like that?
Interviewer: Yes.
Lepeshkin: Tularemia is a natural focus of disease. It is very widespread in these parts, in our country. And often people catch this... this tularemia while doing various types of agri... agricultural work, during haymaking, and hunters often catch it. And in order to... well, and it is a type of... a disease that's common to humans and animals. Of course,
it isn't as powerful and effective as, for example, the causative agent for the plague,
but it is listed as one of the potential... listed as a pathogen which could be used to atta... for, uh... as a biological weapons agent. But a very good anti-tularemia vaccine was developed in the Soviet Union, which was used and
which was very effective.
Interviewer: And why was that?
Lepeshkin: Because the direct... military and civilian scientists
worked at length with this causative agent and succeeded in designing an effective vaccine against the disease.