# Patient Zero (2022)

> In 1980s USSR, a children's hospital in Elista faces the country's first major HIV outbreak, and its staff and families must keep their dignity while no cure exists.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/117189

## Facts

- Seasons: 1
- Episodes: 7
- Episode runtime: 48 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: drama, history
- Created by: Maxim Ivanov
- Network: Kinopoisk
- Cast: Askar Ilyasov, Nikita Efremov, Elizaveta Shakira, Evgeniya Mandzhieva, Evgeniy Stychkin, Pavel Maykov, Igor Gordin, Victoria Agalakova
- TMDB rating: 7.7/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15527340/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: measured
- Intensity: strong
- Complexity: accessible
- Violence: none
- Tone: somber, intimate, tense, compassionate, bleak

## Synopsis

Patient Zero (2022) is a Russian limited series created by Maxim Ivanov for Kinopoisk, a single-season miniseries of seven 48-minute episodes. Set in 1980s USSR at the Elista Children's Hospital, the story follows a community confronting the country's first major HIV outbreak, which has infected more than seventy children along with several adults. Askar Ilyasov plays Kirsan, Nikita Efremov plays Dmitriy, and Elizaveta Shakira plays Alena, with Igor Gordin as Vladimir and Victoria Agalakova as Zina rounding out the principal cast. Doctors, patients and relatives must keep their humanity while the disease is misunderstood, feared and without a cure, and the drama is built on hospital wards, tense family conversations and a society unprepared for an unknown illness. The tone is somber, intimate and morally weighty, balancing clinical dread with quiet compassion and a focus on dignity under pressure. Its grounded, slow-building atmosphere makes it a natural pick for viewers who loved the institutional gravity of Chernobyl and the human-scale medical drama of The Knick. Fans of historical medical dramas and stories of epidemics told through ordinary lives will find it resonant.

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