[Methods for rapid evaluation of the effectiveness of drugs showing promise for urgent prevention and treatment of plague].

The choice of efficient antibacterial drugs useful in special prophylaxis and treatment of plague includes the stage of the in vivo screening whose main disadvantages are long-term and hazardous tests. The paper presents the data showing that a useful chemotherapeutic for the treatment of plague could be safely screened within 48-72 hours. The methods are based on two-fold retrobulbar or intraperitoneal administration of a drug within 24 hours to albino mice infected with highly virulent strains of Y. pestis. The dose should not exceed 1.10(7) live microbes. It was shown that the administration of the plague microbes to albino mice simultaneously with ferrous sulfate lowered the time of the animal death and accelerated the efficacy estimation of the drug.