Virologist Anna Demina: “many people have updated their vaccination calendar after my book”

The “Writer Changes Profession” section from MK always involves unusual interlocutors. The heroes of past publications were a guide, an ornithologist, a numismatist, a trolleybus driver and even a dentist. Our interlocutor today is a native of Siberia, professional virologist Anna Demina, who, in addition to her main activity, was engaged in scientific blogging for many years, and then wrote a book about her work in different parts of the globe.

“Why a virologist?” – our conversation began with this question.

– I was raised by my great-grandmother Nadezhda Aleksandrovna Koltsova. She was an infectious disease doctor and headed a tuberculosis clinic. She taught me a lot when I was just a child. And when I got older, another great-grandmother said that it would be good if I became a doctor.

When I went to medical university, I looked through different specialties: first I wanted to be an oncologist, then a surgeon. But then I saw at the Department of Infectious Diseases how complex the medical histories are, what diagnoses there are: men, women, adults, and children get sick. This interested me. I got an internship with a student who wanted to become a virologist. He persuaded me to take exams together. In the end, my partner didn’t come to the exam, I was left alone and even wanted to run away. They caught me on the stairs, they brought me back, I gave up. And Sergei Netesov (famous molecular biologist, academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences – I.V.) took me to graduate school. And then I became more and more interested in this activity.

– Was the documentary basis of your book “My Name is Mzungu” based on your own life? Do you consider yourself primarily a man in a white coat or a writer?

– I am an active doctor and an active virologist, and at the same time a writer. I have a project in Israel studying flaviviruses and I work directly with patients. So I always have something to write about my adventures and practice.

– Did you participate in the fight against “corona” in your country? How did the course of the pandemic differ in Russia and Israel?

– When the pandemic began, a medical center with branches in St. Petersburg and Novosibirsk offered me online consultations with patients from the Russian Federation. I have advised a huge number of people.

And if we talk about the measures taken by the authorities, in Russia they were more democratic. The treatment was also quite loyal: it was possible to treat according to different protocols, individual doctors were even allowed to introduce personal protocols.

I developed my own protocol, and my survival rate was 98%, which I am very proud of, although the patients were different in severity.

About Israel I will say that almost 100% compulsory vaccination was carried out here, “surveillance” was carried out, PCR tests were done to everyone. The system was very strict.

– How did the idea for the book come about? How did it all begin?

– Initially, I wrote interesting stories from the practice of an infectious disease specialist for my blogs and pages on social networks. Africa gave me so many impressions, such an unforgettable, different experience that I began to write “letters” from there. The first one was called “My name is Mzungu” – that’s what the locals called me, they shouted after me: “mzungu”, translated as “white man”, “white”. Then I collected all the materials together.

– Can you tell us more about trips to Africa?

– Africa is changing the world’s view. I saw her through the eyes of a “white man”, I was the only white-skinned person there, but then I had comrades from Holland, America and Hong Kong. We conducted experiments together, teamed up for shopping and walks.

It’s a pity that I didn’t yet write a blog or make “video reports” about expeditions. A travel blog with a medical focus would definitely become very popular.

But the impressions remained, my patients read certain fragments and asked: tell me more about this. Thanks to them, new chapters emerged.

– You devoted a separate section to the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

– It happened when I was six years old. We lived then in the Gomel region. A very strange, sharp wind blew. About three days later, the adults started giving us red wine and feeding us seaweed and walnuts to prevent radioactive iodine-131 from being captured by the thyroid gland. They gave us antioxidants, but we were not evacuated anywhere. We all received some kind of “dose”, then the women had problems with pregnancy – the consequences were severe. I couldn’t help but reflect this part of the biography; I described the strangely shaped berries and the “taboo” on mushroom picking.

– Is the purpose of your book “memoiristic” or educational?

– I wanted my readers to see the world of infections and bacteria. So that people understand what refusal to vaccinate and improper treatment can lead to. So that they realize that we exist in the same space with infections – and they can touch us at any moment.

I came to Africa to fight infections, but there I realized that the population simply lives with them. And there is no need to “pull them out” of these infections – they organically coexist, not against each other, but together.

Yes, the first goal is education. The Russian-speaking audience, in principle, knows about pandemics and their causes, but from the Israeli or Spanish experience, I can say that after my book, many “refreshed” the vaccination calendar. Someone learned for the first time that virologists even exist – before the coronavirus, many people asked me: who are you?

– Why did your literary debut take place at the height of the COVID-19 rampage?

“I found myself in a confined space: I couldn’t go out, walk, or meet anyone. There was a choice: either sit on the couch with chips, or write a book. Plus I had free time. This was my chance.