Modern Information and Molecular Technologies in the Practice of Epidemiological Surveillance of Natural Focal Infections

The relevance of the presented work is due to the need to improve epidemiological surveillance of natural focal infections, which pose a serious threat to human health and well-being both in the Russian Federation and around the world. Urbanization and development of the territory of natural foci for economic purposes, disruption of ecosystems as a whole leads to the loss of habitat for numerous species of wild animals and forces them to come into contact with humans and domestic animals, thereby contributing to the spread of diseases among them, as well as the subsequent transformation of natural foci into anthropogenic ones. In this regard, it is important to introduce the latest scientific methods and achievements into the practice of the sanitary and epidemiological service of our country. This study examines modern methods and technological solutions that have great potential for expanding the capabilities of epidemiological surveillance (epidemiological and epizootiological monitoring), as well as creating systems to respond to emerging threats of a sanitary and epidemiological nature, including geographic information systems used for data visualization, analysis of spatial and temporal relationships and forecasting risk areas; remote sensing of the Earth, which allows collecting data on the state of the environment using satellites and unmanned aerial vehicles, which is important for analyzing the circulation of infections; genomic epidemiological surveillance, which allows identifying genetic variants of infectious agents, studying their evolution and determining their epidemiological significance; big data analytics – provides information processing for timely detection of outbreaks of infections; artificial intelligence and machine learning – automate data analysis and improve forecast accuracy; the Internet of Things provides real–time data for continuous monitoring of environmental parameters and human health.