An outstanding military epidemiologist, scientist, and teacher academician Vitaly Dmitrievich Belyakov

The article analyzes the results of the life path and creative legacy of the Academician of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences and the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, Professor Major General of the Medical Service Vitaly Dmitrievich Belyakov, whose 100th birthday was celebrated in November 2021. The outstanding scientist-epidemiologist for 18 years headed the Department of General and Military Epidemiology of the S.M.Kirov Medical Academy, after completing military service, for 14 years he was the head of the department of epidemiology at the I.M.Sechenov 1st Moscow Medical Institute. Academician V.D.Belyakov made a valuable contribution to the professional training of personnel for the military medical service and health care of the country, to the improvement of the system of anti-epidemic support of the Armed Forces and preventive medicine in Russia. The main merit of V.D.Belyakov in epidemiological science is the development of the theoretical foundations of unified epidemiology of infectious and non-infectious diseases, the study of the patterns of self-regulation of parasitic systems. He is rightfully considered one of the founders of the modern methodology for epidemiological surveillance of the incidence of the population and the epidemic process of current infections, as well as a reformer of the preventive direction of higher medical education.