Ural State Medical University (USMU) took part in All-Russian Student Olympiad for Epidemiology «Countering new infections in the modern world» which took place on the basis of the University named after Sechenov.

Team «Emergency notice», which included students of Preventive Medicine Faculty Alexander Batov, Daria Vinokurova, Petr Gavrikov, Alexander Nechitaylo and Oksana Protasova, represented USMU. Anna Alexandrovna Kosova, Candidate of Medical Sciences, docent, acting Head of the Department of Epidemiology, Social Hygiene and Organization of the State Sanitary and Epidemiological Service, was leader.

The Olympiad was held in three stages. First stage was individual testing on the subject of the Olympiad. It was worth noting that this competition was very important, as the overall score of the team was influenced by the result of each participant. The individual test result of each participant was summed up in the overall team score. The testing was conducted using a proctoring system. According to the team members, the complexity of this system didn’t affect the overall mood and desire to show the best result. The topics of questions were absolutely diverse: general theoretical aspects of epidemiology, contagious viral hemorrhagic fever, novel coronavirus infection, etc.

Second stage was captain competition. Alexander Nechitaylo represented our team at this stage. The essence of the competition was to give a clear, detailed answer to a question on various aspects of epidemiology in 1 minute. According to Alexander, the questions of this competitions sometimes differed significantly in difficulty. Our captain got a question about Max Tayler, the laureate of the Nobel Prize in physiology and medicine in 1951, and history of the creation of a vaccine against yellow fever.

Third stage was a decisive, the most difficult and most interesting. According to the legend, in the city «N» there was an outbreak of a new, previously unknown infection. The children were asked to literally «decrypt» the origin of this outbreak, to assume the nosology, to identify the source of the causative agent of infection, mechanisms, pathways, transmission factors, to identify the epidemiological features of this infection, to offer a set of anti-epidemic measures in the focus of this infection. In the initial data, according to the organizers of the Olympiad, a lot of «traps and pitfalls» were encrypted, which could push the participants away from the correct hypothesis. Considering that the participants had to determine the nosology themselves, based on the data provided in a limited time, this competition was the most difficult for all participants of the Olympiad. In total, the competition lasted about 6 hours.

As a result, the team of Ural State Medical University was awarded a Diploma of the II degree!

The team thanks Anna Alexandrovna Kosova, acting Head of the Department of Epidemiology, Social Hygiene and Organization of the State Sanitary and Epidemiological Service, Svetlana Sergeevna Smirnova, Doctor of Medical Sciences, docent, Anton Evgenievich Makarov, senior lector, Vladislav Igorevich Chalapa, junior researcher at the Laboratory of Enteral Viral Infections ERIVI FBIS SSC VB «Vector».