In memory of Victor Zhdanov
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In memory of Victor Zhdanov Victor Zhdanov was a scientist of international reputation, a virologist with wide interests, who made seminal contributions in virology, molecular biology, and epidemiology. He was one of the founders of the international community of virologists. Zhdanov was born in the Ukraine on February 13, 1914. After graduating from medical school in 1936, he worked for 10 years as an army doctor in the Zabaikalye and Turkestan military districts. His military service had a deep influence on his life; here, he became familiar with field epidemiology and learned to stand up for his ideas against the army bureaucracy. At this time, his main interest was in the etiology and epidemiology of hepatitis A. He presented this research in his doctoral thesis, entitled "Infectious hepatitis", which he defended in Moscow in 1946. After his demobilization in 1946, Zhdanov was invited to become Chief of the Epidemiology Department of the I. I. Mechnikoff Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology in Kharkov; two years later he became Director of the Institute. During this period he published the first of a series of papers on virus classification that led to his election to the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses as a life member. In 1950, Zhdanov was invited to Moscow to accept a position as Chief of the Epidemiology Department in the U.S.S.R Ministry of Health; he was soon promoted to Deputy Minister of Health. During his 11 years in health administration, Zhdanov worked to control the spread of infectious diseases through improved hygiene and mass vaccination programs. Largely through-his efforts, the vaccination of millions of children led to the control of influenza, measles, and poliomyelitis in the U.S.S.R. As chief of the Soviet delegation to the World Health Organization's (WHO) World Health Assembly, Zhdanov first proposed the Smallpox Eradication Program that eventually led to the eradication of smallpox worldwide. To provide a rapid means of disseminating new findings in virology, Zhdanov founded the journal Problems in Virology in 1956; he remained its editor and an active contributor until his death. Zhdanov's years in health administration were marked by constant struggles with party officials on the Central Committee, who neither understood nor supported his initiatives and succeeded in blocking many of them. Unsatisfied and disillusioned with administrative work, Zhdanov left the Ministry of Health in 1961 to devote himself to scientific research. He accepted the post of Director of the D.I. Ivanovsky Institute of Virology, a position he was to hold for the rest of his life. The study of virology in the Soviet Union began to lag behind the rest of the world because of its isolation and its lack of financial support. To strengthen contacts with western scientists, Zhdanov traveled to the United States in 1968, where he visited a number of virology laboratories and spent three months at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
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