[Integrative processes in modern epidemiology]

The integration of achievements in population ecology and the molecular genetics of pathogenic microorganisms into nowadays epidemiology of infectious diseases and the formation of its corresponding trends are discussed. The decisive role of highly complicated key problems of general epidemiology, such as the regularities of the autochthonous existence of pathogenic bacteria in the environment, the mechanisms of the pathogenicity regulation of infective agents and the formation of their epidemic variants, the mechanisms of the prolonged reservation of pathogenic bacteria at interepidemic (interepizootic) periods, the mechanisms of transformation of active (vegetative) and dormant forms in bacterial populations at different stages of epidemic and epizootic cycles, is demonstrated. The detection and analysis of such processes, and especially their latent mechanisms, become possible with the use of new concepts and methodological approaches, highly productive for the progress of epidemiology.