Health situation in former communist bloc is dire, says Unicef

Marking the tenth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) has issued a report on the social ramifications of the transition to market economies in the former communist bloc.

The report, After the Fall: the Human Impact of Ten Years of Transition, states that women and children have suffered especially hard Although the report chronicles a host of economic and social problems, its findings on health are particularly disturbing, especially on the reappearance of so called “poverty diseases.”

The number of cases of diphtheria in Russia and Ukraine rose from about 1900 cases in 1990 to 43000 in 1998. Poliomyelitis, which had been virtually eliminated in the former Soviet Union, has reappeared in the Central Asian Republics and Ukraine.

Tuberculosis is also on the rise in the western parts of the former Soviet Union, with children accounting for over 10% of new cases. Cases of sexually transmitted diseases are increasing as well.

Syphilis, practically eliminated by 1990, has re-emerged in the former Soviet Union, with some 221 cases per 100000 people in 1998, more than 100 times the average of the European Union.

Meanwhile, the number of cases of HIV infection in the western part of the former Soviet Union had climbed from 30000 in 1994 to 270000 by the end of 1998. “It is safe to say,” the report argues, “that these areas now face an epidemic of HIV and AIDS.”

There are several factors behind these disturbing trends, the report's authors conclude. Although some countries in the region have fared better than others in terms of health statistics, every single one has cut its spending on health care over the past 10 years.

Meanwhile, the despair caused by economic collapse has led to soaring drug misuse, alcoholism, injury, and suicide rates among young people In the Czech Republic, for example, teenagers aged 15 to 19 were twice as likely to end their own lives in 1994 as they were in 1990.

Asked to cite any encouraging signs in the region, Patrick McCormick, a spokesperson for Unicef's Research Centre in Florence, which published the report, said, “there is a freedom now.” But, he added, “children are paying too high a price for that freedom and they are not in a position to benefit from it.”

“I want to eat”—poverty is hitting Russian children hard.

(Credit: SEANSPRAGUE/PANOS PICTURES)