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- WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An
American expert on Russian social trends predicted on Friday that falling
birth rates coupled with an alarming rise in diseases like tuberculosis
and AIDS could cut Russia's population by more than a third by 2050.
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- Murray Feshbach, research professor at Washington's Georgetown
University and a top specialist on Russian social and environmental trends,
predicted Russia's population could fall to as low as 80 million to 100
million from 146 million now.
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- Such a fall would have a big economic and social consequences
which could undermine Russian stability, said Feshbach, who based his projections
on Russian statistics as well as data from non-governmental organizations
and international institutions.
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- Russian authorities predict the population could fall
by between nine million and 17 million by the year 2016.
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- "There is an incredible growth in gynecological
diseases and infertility," Feshbach told a news conference.
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- Although statistics are incomplete or inaccurate, he
said there were about 450,000 new cases of syphilis in the last year, compared
to some 8,000 new cases recorded in the United States, which has a population
of about 260 million.
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- He said the Russian Central Bureau of Epidemiology predicted
that by 2002 there would be two million cases of HIV, the virus that causes
AIDS, and AIDS itself in the country.
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- In Moscow new cases had increased by a factor of 12 in
the first half of this year over the same period in 1999, he said, adding,
"the numbers are increasing supergeometrically" and would start
to seriously impact on mortality rates in about a decade.
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- He said official Russian figures showed 108,000 new cases
of tuberculosis last year, with the World Health Organisation estimating
150,000.
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- For comparison, he noted that there were about 18,000
new cases in the United States in 1997 and few of them died. In 1997 there
were 24,777 recorded deaths from TB in Russia, he said.
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- He also referred to the well-publicized fears over an
alarming increase in multi-drug resistant TB, saying there were 20,000
cases in Russian prisons and 10,000 outside.
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- The U.S. Centers for Disease Control wrote in a report
in August: "The incidence of tuberculosis in the Russian Federation
has increased steadily from 34 per 100,000 population in 1991 to 78 per
100,000 in 1998."
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- World Health Organization officials have warned of a
spillover into Western Europe if the TB epidemic in Russia is not checked.
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- Feshbach said other factors affecting the Russian population
included the release of chemicals and heavy metals into the water supply
and air which cause genetic and other diseases and are particularly dangerous
for children and pregnant women.
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- The high consumption of alcohol and tobacco as well as
the low-vitamin diet - with continuing bad harvests, poverty and chaos
in the food distribution system - also contributed to raising mortality
rates.
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- In the 1990s Russia took over from Hungary and Japan
as having the world's leading suicide rate.
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- "When you weigh it up, the entire burden on that
population is enormous," he said.
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- Looking for hopeful signs, he said it appeared the Russian
authorities were beginning to get increasingly serious about tackling the
issues, but he said "A large part of this is inexorable."
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