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President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Mr Dedov, I would like to begin by congratulating you on your birthday. A lot has been achieved under your leadership; you have accomplished simply outstanding results in the field you have devoted all your life to. Over the last few years alone, I have just looked it up, over the past three years, you have supervised the training of 1,500 physicians, hundreds of residents, postgraduates, PhDs. Amazing! You have your own school.

Ivan Dedov: Yes, thank you very much.

Vladimir Putin: Thank you, so much.

Mr Dedov, during these difficult days of fighting COVID, the pandemic, you also carry on your regular work. Could you say a few words about this?

Ivan Dedov: Of course. Thank you very much.

Vladimir Putin: Please go ahead.

Ivan Dedov: Thank you for your time.

In fact, the National Endocrinology Centre is indeed a unique institution today, unique in both structure and functionality. Almost any endocrinopathy, or endocrine system disorder, that can be found on planet Earth, is within the competence and practice of our centre. This covers every case from the rarest, orphan diseases in children to widespread, socially and economically significant multimillion cases of diabetes.

Speaking of the endocrinology service, I believe thousands of experts, endocrinologists are successfully carrying out their work because it takes a lot of effort to be responsible for 47 million patients with diabetes and other metabolic diseases, as well as children’s diseases. These are chronic diseases, as a rule. It requires the introduction of new advanced technologies.

I would like to thank you for initiating an entire range of very important projects, including genetic research and personalised medicine. All of them benefit science, healthcare, medicine, and the economy in general.

The thing is that for the healthcare system, personalised medicine is a paradigm of a new, different kind of preventive medicine. We can already determine risks using genetic markers, and neutralise them. Early diagnostics and individual treatment are also among these achievements.

Therefore, naturally, we have totally new opportunities, including the development of the Healthcare project. We have suggested our scenario for the development of the endocrinology service: starting with the primary care endocrinologists – they must remain in place and their practices should be different – to the next level of specialists and then to the national centre. This is very important.

It is also vital that genetics is currently an actively developing field. And we put these new technologies into the development of the endocrinology service.

Nowadays, people with diabetes are the most vulnerable patients, especially amid the COVID-19 pandemic. They suffer from not only systemic damage to their blood vessels, but their erythrocytes are blocked by glucose and cannot bring the four necessary oxygen molecules to the tissues. In addition to this metabolic hypoxia, COVID patients suffer from lung hypoxia, therefore the mortality rate is so high among these patients.

We have hypothesised which innovative drugs we would definitely need today. We have actually proposed our own version of the most effective COVID treatment that should be applied from the very first days of the viral attack. Because nature has invented a completely amazing remedy for the entire animal world, including for humans – corticosteroids, the adrenal hormones. They regulate the immune system, but they also stop any allergic or other unwanted or harmful effect on the living organism.

When a patient is injected with corticosteroids, they stop the division of viruses, and of course, this storm, the release of cytokines. With this done, further treatment can be figured out. So, corticosteroids come first. Anticoagulants are added to prevent thrombosis, and then, of course, oxidants, ascorbic acid, because it is also used to build adrenal hormones, and so on. We are getting very good results in this regard.

Anyway, we have experience. One of our buildings has been doing excellent work on this.

Vladimir Putin: At your centre?

Ivan Dedov: Yes. We have also proposed protocols to manage diabetes patients, what medications are needed, how to curb this generation of red blood cells, which are already blocked. Glucose not only blocks red blood cells; it also blocks all cells wherever it goes.

In this sense, our approaches are broader and deeper, compared, say, with pulmonologists. But they are accepted by our colleagues.

I think it is safe to say that Russia, united from the President to volunteers, has achieved absolutely unique results in the fight against COVID. This is a fact. People do not really understand sometimes. They do not understand that they are crossing the red line voluntarily. It is just that our people have a big heart, they are generous and always ready to lend a hand. Historically, this is so. So naturally, they do not need to be told, they just go, even though there is mortal danger of losing their health there.

Vladimir Putin: In the red zone.

Ivan Dedov: Yes. Or even their life.

This is so typical for us; in this sense, Russia is a separate planet. You have said more than once – this is what keeps us going. And this historical spirit, blended through our history and culture, must, of course, be encouraged.

Vladimir Putin: Mr Dedov, but this is also due, among other things, to the contribution from people like you, your colleagues. Once again, I congratulate you on your birthday.

Ivan Dedov: Thank you very much.

Vladimir Putin: Thank you.