On 15 February 2013 (2 February on the Julian Calendar) we celebrated the 100‐year anniversary of the world's first successful experimental plasmapheresis. Scientific research projects in this field were carried out by the Department of Infectious Disease, Russian Imperial Medical Surgical Academy located in Saint‐Petersburg. Doctor of Medical Sciences and Professor Vadim A. Yurevich was a Principal Investigator for this research, which in 1913 resulted in the discovery of a new way of treatment. The results were published in Russki Vratch (Russian Physician) Journal no. 18 (1914) – V.A. Yurevich and N.K. Rosenberg “For the Question Regarding Washing of Blood Outside of the Body and the Vitality of Red Blood Cells”. There was no terminology offered for this medical innovation at that time. Plasma removal was performed not solely, but in combination with washing of blood cells returned to the patient. Nowadays this combination is still considered to be more effective than separate plasmapheresis. According to the published experimental protocols this new treatment was done on 15 February (2 February on the Julian Calendar or “old style”). One year later in 1914 a famous researcher, John Abel and coauthors, repeated a separate plasma removal treatment with retransfusion of the blood cells and suggested the term “plasmapheresis”, which is now official. The article entitled “Plasma Removal With Return of Corpuscles (Plasmapheresis)”, written by Abel was published 3 months later than the article by Professor Yurevich. In 1924, Dr Ivan P. Mikhailovskiy repeated experiments by Yurevich and Rosenberg in vivo on a dog model, confirmed the clinical efficiency and developed the methodology in his article “Washing of Blood In Vivo, the Methodology, Problems, and Importance for the Treatment of Toxic Conditions.”

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The article provides the main statements of the guidelines for the anesthesia and intensive care of patients with the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), developed by the Federation of Anesthesiologists and Reanimatologists of Russia. In the process of developing the recommendations, the publications of the official websites of the Russian Federation, the electronic databases of the RSCI, PubMed, MEDLINE, EMBASE and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) were analyzed by the developers independently of each other. The date of the last search query was February 01, 2021. To develop the recommendations for the Guidelines, were used documents directly describing the features of the management of patients with NCI COVID-19 (guidelines - 34; randomized clinical trials and Cochrane Reviews - 13; observational and comparative studies - 107; other documents, notes and comments - 64), and documents describing anesthesia and intensive care in the general population of patients. Compared to the previous 4th version of the guidelines, the recommendations in 8 sections have been corrected; new subsections “Chronic kidney disease”, “Rehabilitation treatment of patients with COVID-19 in the intensive care unit”, “Routing of patients with COVID-19 to the stages of rehabilitation” were created; revised 1 Appendix, additionally developed 7 Appendices; the section “Quality criteria” has been supplemented. The provisions of the current version of the guidelines highlight the specifics of anesthesia, intensive care, rehabilitation, resuscitation measures, manipulation, transportation, prevention of the spread of COVID-19 in the implementation of these activities. Methods of protecting personnel from infection with COVID-19 during manipulations, anesthesia and intensive care are considered. The features of respiratory support, extracorporeal detoxification, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, thromboprophylaxis, drug interactions are described. The features of management of pregnant women, children of different age groups, patients with concomitant diseases, the principles of the formation of stocks of drugs and consumables are considered.

The article provides the main statements of the guidelines for the anesthesia and intensive care of patients with the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), developed by the Federation of Anesthesiologists and Reanimatologists of Russia. In the process of developing the recommendations, the publications of the official websites of the Russian Federation, the electronic databases of the RSCI, PubMed, MEDLINE, EMBASE and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) were analyzed by the developers independently of each other. The date of the last search query was June 29, 2020. To develop the Guidelines for the recommendations, were used documents that directly describing the features of the management of patients with coronavirus disease COVID-19 (guidelines and guidelines - 16; randomized clinical trials and Cochrane Reviews - 8; observational and comparative studies - 77; other documents, notes and comments - 54) and describing anesthetic and resuscitation support in the general population of patients. The provisions of the recommendations highlight the specifics of anesthesia, intensive care, resuscitation, manipulation, and prevention of the spread of COVID-19 in the implementation of these activities. Methods of protecting personnel from infection with COVID-19 during manipulations, anesthesia and intensive care are considered. The features of respiratory support, extracorporeal detoxification, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, thromboprophylaxis are described. The features of the management of pregnant women, children of different age, patients with concomitant diseases, issues of transportation of patients are considered.

Rare diseases continue to present numerous challenges for the medical field worldwide. Understanding innovative mechanisms of service provision for patients with rare conditions through shared communication across different healthcare systems should be encouraged. This study presents the organization of medical care for people with rare diseases in Russia, while also exploring the epidemiology of both life-threatening and chronic, progressive, rare diseases. Further, the regulation of medical care provision is examined, including the preferential provision of medicines in different Russian regions and potential role of compulsory medical insurance. The principles guiding patient referrals to appropriate specialist centres for rare diseases are outlined, including considering the increased role that public-patient organizations have in developing healthcare systems. In reviewing the specialized resources available for patients with rare diseases, medical genetics services offering diagnostics and counselling are discussed. Additionally, population-level preventive care necessitates significant investment, principally in diagnostic technology and screening programs. As seen elsewhere, these initiatives involve forming reference centres and tertiary-level pediatric departments staffed by multidisciplinary specialists in rare diseases. Numerous challenges are highlighted relating to Russian healthcare systems, including the financing of expensive treatments and ensuring equitable access to medical care for those patients with rare diseases outside of State-subsidized programs. Recommendations are made on creating international registries for knowledge sharing, quality appraisal, newborn screening, diagnostic challenges, available treatments and rehabilitation services. Given the high cost of rare diseases, cost-effective interventions are advisable, particularly developing preventive programs and targeting the most common and severe mutations in patients planning pregnancies.