Chornobyl’ mark in medicine

Every year in April we remember those who during ominous days of spring 1986 not sparing their health and lives were against the largest ever manmade disaster. By heroic efforts firefighters and specialists on staff of Chornobyl NPP managed to extinguish the fire at the fourth reactor destroyed by the explosion. Liquidators, who were the first to fight with radiation elements, became the first victims of the acute radiation sickness. Then the threat of radiation damage of people spread over the large areas of the neighbor regions and over its territories. It was a challenge to domestic medicine which faced the question in its all complexity: how to counteract the adverse effects of radiation on human health? There was a need for completely new medical and scientific approaches to the strategy of rectification of the consequences of radiation disaster.
The first important and major measure aimed to perform this task was the opening of the All-Soviet Union Scientific Center of Radiation Medicine in Kyiv on October 1, 1986, which was put directly under supervision of the Academy of medical sciences of the USSR. Today it is widely known in the world institution as part of the National Academy of Medical Sciences of Ukraine – the National Research Center of Radiation Medicine (NRCRM). Since that time they provide help there to the victims in a medical, preventive and scientific range of new medical directions. The General Director of the National Research Center of Radiation Medicine, the member-correspondent of the NAMS of Ukraine, the Doctor of the medical sciences, Professor Dmytro BAZYKA says about the gained experience, the implementation of health programs and plans for the future.