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FBIS3-41550_0 | Kampong Chhnang Forest Cover Disappearing | Language: Cambodian Article Type:CSO [Text] At the present time, people in Kompong Chhnang Province do not have timber resources to live off. The forests in this province can only provide firewood. And now, even the firewood is disappearing. Nearly one-half of the population of the province had made a living by cutting and selling firewood as a permanent occupation especially in the Tuk Phos, Samakki Meanchey, Kompong Tralach, and Rolea Pier districts. The decline of the forests in Kompong Chhnang Province to the level where all the forests are unable to grow means that the forests which have been cut grow back and then are repeatedly cut. Therefore these forests cannot grow large. This is only one part of the population. Another part is a group of merchants who go up into the mountains to cut the big trees illegally; the provincial forest wardens fear this group and do not dare arrest them because when they leave the forest they always have carloads of armed guards to protect them. Mr. Sarun, Deputy Chief of Agriculture responsible for provincial forests has reported that they do not know what steps to take to effectively solve this problem and keep the forest from further deterioration. At the present time, the Khmer Rouge is gradually moving to use these forests very intensively. And the collecting of taxes by the Khmer Rouge is increasing. As for the province, they have admitted to the anarchy that they are unable to protect the forests from destruction. When the Cambodian government gets new legal powers or there is an armed force to assist the province, only then will the province be effective. The chief of the provincial forest wardens has pointed out that while the province did not have large trees to saw, there were sawmills in 56 locations including 16 legal mills. In the days of the Sangkum, there were only three sawmills in the province, and ll of them received timber from Pursat Province. Every day timber flows from Pursat Province into Kompong Chhnang by the hundreds of logs. The province does not know how to close down all these sawmills and everyone seems to be waiting for a change in conditions in the country. As for the flood plain forests, Mr. Sarun found out that 20 percent has been destroyed yet the provincial water products [department] seems not to have taken an interest in the |
FBIS3-41575_0 | Deputy Prime Minister Warns of `New Threats' to Ozone | Language: English Article Type:BFN [Text] Deputy Prime Minister Amnuai Wirawan yesterday called for the establishment of more ozone observation stations in developing countries. Mr. Amnuai, addressing the opening of the Third Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer at the United Nations Conference Centre, said most of the objectives set out when the convention was first agreed upon had been achieved. ``New threats to the ozone layer are possible,'' he said, pointing to a pressing need for continuing research on ozone layer depletion. He drew attention to the work of the World Meteorological Organisation in investigating UV-B radiation and its environmental effects. UV-B radiation, which has some positive influences on the body, can also cause sunburn, snow blindness, cataracts, ageing of the skin and skin cancer. It can suppress immunity against tumours initiated in the skin, and can affect plant growth and plankton formation adversely. |
FBIS3-41576_0 | Toxic Waste Laws `Ineffective' | Language: English Article Type:CSO [Text] Three laws intended to govern the use and disposal of hazardous waste have been rendered ineffective because the list of restricted chemicals has yet to be completed, the House standing committee on the environment learned yesterday. Experts who testified before the committee said that, while the list was more than six months overdue, the problem was becoming more urgent as increasing numbers of people were falling sick from exposure to dangerous chemicals. One expert said the list was being delayed because of pressure from industry. Committee adviser Dr. Teanchuang Kalayanamit said the problem of toxic chemicals in Thailand stemmed mainly from the fact that the laws which regulate them are ineffective. The relevant laws are the Hazardous Substances Act, the Factory Act and the new Environment Law. ``All three laws, which are related to the import, use and disposal of toxic chemicals, are not workable now. They are dependent on the chemical categories list, which is currently incomplete. This is why we seem to have such poor enforcement of toxic chemical-related law,'' he said. This list is supposed to divide chemicals into different categories: some are supposed to be used with care, others require strict labelling and some are supposed to be banned outright. The main agency responsible for drawing up the list is the Pollution Control Department. The Department of Industrial Works and the Agriculture Ministry would then implement the laws. ``Sections 17 and 92 of the Hazardous Substances Law require the list of hazardous chemicals classification, while section 18 requires the list of occupational diseases,'' Teanchuang explained. ``Even though this law stated that these lists had to be finished within six months, it's been more than one year now since the amended law was enacted.'' Dr. Teanchuang said the Factory Act also has no toxic chemical classifications, giving industry a ``golden period'' during which it can do anything without paying attention to the law. The law is also supposed to control waste treatment while in fact there are not enough treatment plants, and hazardous waste is usually dumped, he added. ``The Environment Law, which also stated that different types of waste will be announced, is now nothing. So, all of the laws have lost important parts,'' Teanchuang said. ``As we know, the lists are late because there are some lobbies from industrial owners who pressure government agencies to label favorably the chemicals they |
FBIS3-41580_0 | Symposium Held on Effects of Vietnam War Defoliants | Language: English Article Type:BFN [Text] Hanoi VNA, Nov 20 -- The Vietnamese president has conferred `friendship' medals on American Prof. Arnold Schecter of Syracuse University in New York, the United States, and Doctor Miura Hiroshi, vice president of the Vietnam-Japan Medical Exchange Centre, for their studies of the consequences of the toxic chemicals used by the US Armed Forces in the Vietnam war and their humanitarian aid to the Vietnamese people to overcome the war aftermaths. Occasion was the 2d International Symposium on `Herbisides in War, the Long-Term Effects on Man and Nature' held here from 15-19 November by the National Committee on the Consequences of Chemical Warfare in Vietnam, the Ministry of Public Health and the Ministry of Science Technology and Environment. During the symposium, more than 200 Vietnamese and foreign participants discussed problems such as dioxin in human organism, soil composition, vegetal organism and its long-term effects on the environment. It was reported that US defoliants known as Agent Orange had caused long term, dangerous effects on the environment and millions of people in Vietnam. Over the past years, the country has done much to solve problems caused by the US toxic chemicals, providing initial medical care to the victims. Reforestation has been promoted nationwide particularly in areas destroyed by the US defoliants to restore the environment to normal conditions. |
FBIS3-41586_2 | Report on Current State of Slovak Environment | society to talk about a dangerous invisible killer. Are we doing it out of indifference or out of ignorance? A system in which truth about the environment of this or that region is suppressed may be something we have become accustomed to, but adding to it is also another deficiency, which is the ignorance of representatives of the regional state administration in regard to environmental issues. We will attempt a gradual search for the causes of this state of affairs. And it is an alarming one. The median life expectancy for men in our country is 66.6 years. That is six to seven years less than in the advanced countries. Women live longer--75.4 years, on average--which, however, is five to seven years less than in Western Europe. Mortality rose by 2.5 per thousand in the 1960-80 period. We may say that is not bad, it virtually stagnates. But, when we realize that up to one-fifth of the deceased do not reach age 60 because deaths due to tumors and diseases of the circulatory system have increased and the number of cancer cases have nearly doubled over 1965, we must recognize that the situation is alarming. Not until 1988 did we learn the facts from certain okreses relating to high infant and perinatal mortality. Until that time, we were handing out false numbers because the quality of medical care was judged by the percentage of deaths. But the cause was (and still is) a rising number of children born with development defects, risky pregnancies due to a deteriorating environment, and problems rooted in social pathology that have continued to grow in the past four years. Furthermore, environmental deterioration impacts adversely on the health of the population, contributing to allergies and oncological and cardiovascular diseases, cases of which in the advanced countries are already declining in number. Particularly dangerous are such negative factors as noise, vibrations, radiation, exposure to heat, thermal pollution, radon threat, and, above all, harmful substances in food. Nor can we shut our eyes to inadequate health care, which has been deteriorating from year to year due to reduced subsidies. Up to 55 percent of the SR [Slovak Republic] population lives in environmentally impaired areas, of whom 41 percent in a strongly, up to extremely, impaired environment. The following regions, in particular, are unhealthy and endangered: Bratislava, Trnava-Galanta, the upper Nitra, central Hron, Kosice, central Zemplin, central Spis, the |
FBIS3-41586_8 | Report on Current State of Slovak Environment | one is around, owners of those wheeled homes rarely hesitate.... An Austrian would not do such a thing, and thereby evidently shows his patriotism. There is a great shortage of sewage treatment plants, even though more are under construction. We need many more of them, also because surface waters especially are greatly polluted. And again we run up against an insoluble circle. We have barely 60 percent of the required quantity of potable water, but we are wasting it mindlessly and using it for all purposes because we do not have nonpotable, utility water that ought to be used in industry. Every year we produce 34 million tons of waste, of which 3.3 million are hazardous and 1.6 million communal waste. Records show that we have 7,204 dumps, of which 335 have permits. A certain portion of the waste is incinerated. Of the 70 incinerators, only two are large (over 100,000 tons annually). Of 34 small incinerators for industrial waste, up to 11 lack scrubbers for removing exhalates. Hospital waste, too, is burned in inadequate incinerators. A special problem is safeguarding suitable storage of radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel. But, in the field of waste management, we are confronted with yet another scare. Some canny businessmen take advantage of foreign offers and, for a relatively attractive financial reward, import tons of waste, especially plastics from the FRG, the burning of which releases the kind of exhalates for which the German entrepreneur would have to pay millions at home. Our entrepreneurs are taking advantage of legal loopholes and discard the imported waste in our dumps or even outside of them, sometimes with the blessing of local officials, perhaps for a bribe or because the responsible officials are not bound by any law because current legislation speaks only of a ban on the importation of hazardous materials. Customs offices do not have experts or laboratories to establish whether the imported waste constitutes a hazard. Regional officials, too, have no way of verifying the imported materials. Workers at the incinerators very often accept them willingly because they feel the marks slipping right into their pockets. In this way, we face the prospect of becoming, within a few years, the waste dump of Europe. Those who now operate within this lethal circle are totally unconcerned that they are robbing their children of years of life and preparing an early death for them as |
FBIS3-41588_0 | Experts Urge Banning Toxic Waste Imports to Latin America | Language: Spanish Article Type:BFN [Text] Experts from 22 countries of our continent, who are participating in the meeting called for by the Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLA) and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), approved in Santiago on 18 November a recommendation that their governments implement a regional agreement banning the importation of all types of wastes that could be dangerous for the region. They also called on the member parties of the Brasilea Agreement [not further identified] to totally ban this trade from industrialized countries to developing nations. ``The dispatch of waste from First World countries for processing or recycling has been transformed into a mechanism that in practice camouflages the uncontrolled and indiscriminate transfer of dangerous waste,'' the experts stressed. The participants agreed in indicating that Latin American and Caribbean countries do not have the capability to process their own toxic wastes, thus making it very difficult for them to take charge of toxic waste from other areas. |
FBIS3-41593_0 | Environmental Protection Bill Outlined | Language: Spanish Article Type:CSO [Commentary by Nicaraguan Environmental Movement Executive Director Pedro Gamboa] [Text] The increasing environmental deterioration of Nicaragua's natural resources and the severe water and soil pollution caused by the irrational use of pesticides and indiscriminate discharge of toxic chemical and industrial wastes make it essential to control and regulate the nation's economic activities. Various publications and reports--even government reports--presented by reputable persons with well-known environmental credentials have provided us with information that is truly alarming regarding the nation's future development. One example is the deforestation rate--150,000 hectares a year--in areas used for agriculture. Deforestation is creating a crisis, and in 15 years we will have no woods, as Nicaragua's present forested area is approximately 3.5 million hectares. Water is another critical case. Here the crisis has two aspects: a) The small quantity of resources left. b) The quality of the resources we are using. Institutional Regulation In the first case, we have learned recently that over 40 rivers in the central Pacific region have dried up. Secondly, a large part of our rivers, lakes, and ponds are badly polluted. In Managua, we are now dependent for water for human consumption on Asososca Lake and underground wells. This situation demands the improvement of institutional management, the rationalization of our use of natural resources, and the people's organized and conscious involvement in protecting our natural resources and preserving the quality of the environment. These factors are the qualitative aspects which the MAN [Nicaraguan Environmental Movement] is proposing for Nicaraguan society in the General Environmental Bill. This bill's most important features are: 1. Assigning environmental management duties and functions to each government agency in a coherent and orderly manner. 2. Allowing the people to exercise control of the natural resources of their area, through the use of administrative, civil, or criminal actions against those who violate the law. 3. Requiring an environmental impact study before any economic project is undertaken. Toxic Wastes Prohibited 4. Giving producers, through fiscal, tax, and credit policies, incentives for investments or other efforts that will lead to the restoration and preservation of their area or territory. 5. Requiring students to perform 100 hours of environmental work in their area, as a graduation requirement. 6. Barring imports of toxic wastes and chemical products prohibited in their country of origin; the discharge or storage of trash in parks or public areas; spraying pesticides in urban areas and |
FBIS3-41604_1 | Baltic Fleet Official on Ecological Situation in Region | of waste from such ships is forbidden within a 200-mile coast zone. In my opinion, the solution to this issue is the construction of a purifying station. It should be built in Baltiysk where most of our ships are stationed. The collectors of oil products and waste which are at our disposal do not meet our demands. In addition, such ships-collectors spend a lot of time disposing of the collected waste. Civil institutions are reluctant to service military ships because they have to overhaul the civil ones first. By the way, this waste can be later processed into industrial fuel. In Riga, for example, the fishing kolkhoz ``Brisastselsh'' has been buying oil waste and processing it into industrial fuel. In our situation, the Baltic Fleet is paying for the processing of its waste, however, we do not get back any industrial fuel. According to our accounts, a water purifying station will recover the investments in two-three years. Considering the fact that Baltiysk is going to acquire international recognition, the construction of a water purifying station will make it possible to decrease the pollution of the Baltic Sea. In addition, we have another source of pollution. In Baltiysk harbor, station KU-50, which performs purification of biological waste, has not been brought to full capacity. Hence, people's feces are overflowing to the Baltic Sea. Shcheblykin: Do you see any way out of this situation? Petrov: We count on eight collectors of oil products and waste which could be transported to us from Liepaja, Riga, and Tallinn. Despite the fact that these collectors are outdated, we hope that they could aid us in easing the ecological situation in the region. Shcheblykin: Nikolay Vasilevich, in addition to ships, you have a complex of ground facilities, including motorcars, cantonments, fuel bases, in general, a great number of sites which could pollute the environment. How do they effect the environment? Petrov: In the first half of 1993, we have been fined some 450,000 rubles because the Baltic Fleet had caused three oil overflows. Our naval cantonments require complete reconstruction. For example, Khrabrovo sewage disposal has been under construction since 1974. It is a paradox, however, the new building needs repairing. This is out of the question. Moreover, the houses that are being built currently also lack sewage disposal. In addition, I can lay charges on check points, technical services, and garages of our units. Exhaust emission |
FBIS3-41612_0 | Moscow River `Dangerous to Life' Due to Pollution | Language: Russian Article Type:BFN [From the ``Vesti'' newscast] [Text] The results have been summed up of two years' work on a program for the comprehensive inspection of the water route of the Moscow River within the city's boundaries. After receiving the results of the analysis of the water and its inhabitants, researchers have recognized the Moscow River to be dangerous to life. [Correspondent Yevgeniy Pogorelova, over video showing Moscow River] What is the Moscow River? A port for five seas on tourist postcards or a huge garbage dump with 18 million cubic meters of toxic waste on its bottom? [Video shows map of river] On this map of the Moscow River, the sections marked in red and yellow are dangerous or extremely dangerous zones where permissible norms of contents of salts of heavy metals and toxic substances have been exceeded by hundreds of times. Iron, lead, and arsenic have been discovered in the silt on the bed of the river in the area of the Kremlin, the Yauza estuary, Setun and Skhodnya. The contents of mercury in the river downstream of ZIL [Moscow's major motor works] exceeds all permissible norms by 250 times. [Video shows samples of fish caught in the river] This is fish that lives in the river -- monsters with irreversible genetic changes, without fins and scales, goggle-eyed, and with cancer tumors. According to ichthyologists from the Moscow State University and the Institute of Evolutionary Morphology of the Academy of Sciences, the process of mutation takes several years with fish and several decades with human beings. The laboratory assistants who are conducting research into mutants' internal organs have received grave poisoning. The latest research has shown radioactive elements in the water in the area of Strogino. The Moscow River is turning into a dead reservoir and everyone who comes into contact with it is being subjected to the danger of mutation and cancer. |
FBIS3-41615_0 | Finnish Nuclear Waste Delivered to Chelyabinsk-65 | Language: Russian Article Type:BFN [Text] Twenty-five tonnes of nuclear fuel waste have been sent to Chelyabinsk-65 by the Finnish company Imatran Voima OY. This is the 11th delivery of the deadly freight from the company engaged in nuclear waste disposal. The Mayak production association has already received 200 tonnes of waste. According to a Norwegian ecological organization, there are about 30 tonnes of plutonium at Mayak's stores. Russian authorities have told the international organization Greenpeace that Mayak does not have the necessary licence entitling it to reprocess this specific material, and therefore the International Atomic Energy Association does not consider itself responsible for supervizing the reprocessing of waste. This report was supplied by the European-Asian News Agency. |
FBIS3-41626_0 | Military, Defense Industry Environmental Record Examined | Language: Russian Article Type:CSO [Article by Andrey Bayduzhiy: ``The Army and VPK Enterprises Exploited Nature over the Decades Without Control: The Situation Might Change after Approval of the Edict of the President of Russia on the Establishment of Ministry of Defense Ecological Subunits''] [Text] The recent discharge of liquid radioactive wastes into the Sea of Japan by a tanker of the Russian Navy attracted keen attention, it seems, only because of the foreign policy complications that the Russian authorities caused themselves. Against the background of Russia's dumping radioactive wastes with an activity of 55.2 Curies just last year, the sensation raised by about 900 cubic liters of radioactive water with a strength of ``a total'' of one Curie looks at the very least greatly exaggerated. There are 394 reactors on 228 nuclear vessels of the country's Navy, and contamination of seas and oceans by radioactive wastes is inevitable at least for several more years, until such time as technical and financial problems of their utilization are resolved. Meanwhile, if the international aspect is dismissed, the latest incident is a good reason to examine more attentively an entire complex of questions associated with the effect of the activity of the Armed Forces on the ecological situation in the country. Especially because this is already not the first case when the Russian MFA [Ministry of Foreign Affairs], and before this the Soviet MFA, had to take the rap for the actions of its military, whose attitude toward nature was traditionally based on the well-known principle ``after us the deluge.'' It is enough to mention at least the multibillion sums of damage caused by the Soviet Army in the countries of Eastern Europe, as compensation for which the USSR and Russia had to abandon the right to real estate of hundreds of military facilities in this region. Even if a correction is made to the vested interest of the governments of East European countries in increasing the sums of ecological damage, it is still measured in astronomical figures, and one can only guess the scale of similar damage to the environment on the territory of the ex-USSR itself, where the Army operated in an incomparably more free and easy manner. Today in Russia alone 12.8 million hectares of land are used by the Ministry of Defense, of which 1.3 million is assigned to test ranges. According to expert assessments, the level of the |
FBIS3-41627_0 | Navy Nuclear Safety Department Head on Nuclear Dumping | Language: English Article Type:BFN [Text] The commander in chief of Russia's Navy has set up a department charged with assuring the safety of vessels with nuclear power installations. The head of this department, Commodore Viktor (Sakharov) told us about the recent dumping of some of the Pacific Fleet's radioactive waste intothe Sea of Japan, which all but caused complications in Russo-Japanese relations. [Begin (Sakharov) recording in Russian, fading into English translation] The dumping on 17 October was planned. It was sanctioned by the Russian Ministry of Environmental Protection. Some 90 cubic meters of liquid radioactive waste were dumped into the Sea of Japan. Their total activity was 0.38 Curie. Everything was done according to schedule in the presence of an official from the ministry. The surface layer of the sea was monitored throughout the dumping. The gamma radiation at a distance of 20 meters from the dumping site did not exceed the background radiation. [end recording] Asked whether the Navy could give up dumping at sea, (Sakharov) said this: The Navy has a big problem. It so far has no shore installations for radioactive waste disposal and it won't have them until after 1997. So it has to use the methods it has employed up to now. In general, (Sakharov) believes the Navy should not be concerned with the storage or disposal of radioactive waste. The problem should be dealt with on a national scale by a single state body. In other words, the Navy should turn its waste over to some reprocessing plant and pay for its services. Such plants would reprocess the waste of all the ministries and other agencies that operate nuclear installations. Asked how the problem is dealt with in other countries, (Sakharov) provided this information: Nearly all the countries operating nuclear power installations face the same problems. Until recently, most of them dumped liquid radioactive waste into the sea. Commodore (Sakharov) says he and his colleagues are well aware that this is no solution to the problem. The problem has to be solved radically. Eventually the radioactive waste dumped into the sea will worsen the environmental situation, first locally in individual areas and then on a bigger scale affecting the animal and plant world and human beings. The problem can hardly be solved by the Navy or, for that matter, by the country. It has to be tackled by all nations since humanity has no |
FBIS3-41632_0 | Reservoir Poses Threat to 50,000 Persons | Language: Russian Article Type:BFN [From the ``Vesti'' newscast: Video report from Kazakhstan by A. Svyazin and A. Kondrashov, identified by caption] [Text] [Svyazin over video of warning sign followed by effluent canal] At the beginning of the seventies two reservoirs for collecting effluent from the Kazakh capital and its satellite cities were built a few kilometers from Almaty. Most of the effluent was channeled into the (?Zhaman-kum) reservoir, which burst its banks in 1988. Eleven people were killed at the time. Following the breach of the (?Zhaman-kum), all the effluent containing heavy metals, carcinogenic substances, petrochemical products, and also various bacteria and viruses ended up in the Sorbulak reservoir. The water level in the Sorbulak reservoir began to rise sharply. The threat of a breach emerged. Mels Yeleusizov: chairman of the ``Greens'' Party, identified by caption] The situation now is simply critical. Another year, and the water may pour over the dike and there will be a catastrophe. There is a real threat of 50,000 people being killed. Svyazin: The problem of Almaty effluent recycling has been examined by the Republic of Kazakhstan Academy of Sciences. Scientists believe that a state emergency commission should be set up as a matter of urgency. [video shows sign warning against bathing or use of water in the canal; effluent canal; closeup of drain; man testing water; map and views of Sorbulak reservoir] |
FBIS3-41633_0 | Environmentalists Denounce Plans To Build Waste Processor | Language: English Article Type:BFN [Text] Riga, Nov 20 BNS -- The Latvian Environmental Protection club dislikes intentions of the Liechtenstein-based Premex Antstalt firm to build a waste burning plant in Latvia, the club's spokesman Pavils Raudonis told BNS. The club recognizes the need for treating toxic waste but says that the Premex Antstalt's project contradicts the Latvian law on dangerous waste and a respective Basel convention. The project provides to build a plant for burning highly toxic chemical waste in the vicinity of the Riga port. The firm plans to process not only Latvia's own waste but to bring it in from Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the CIS and the United States. The first stage of the project envisions to build one processor able to burn down 50 percent of the totally planned volume of noxious substances. Later, two more processors would be built. From their total burning capacity of 300 tons per year, 20 percent would be Latvia's own and 80 percent -- imported waste. The project requires a $450 million investment and 10 million U.S. dollars in yearly operational costs. |
FBIS3-41646_0 | France to Launch Oil Treatment Consortium | Language: French Article Type:CSO [Article by Jean-Pierre Gaudard: ``Environment: New Decree to Be Published Next Month; Used-Oil Recovery Network Being Set Up''--first paragraph is L'USINE NOUVELLE introduction] [Text] Industrial waste specialists could find new markets. But the collection system must be revised, and treating processes evaluated. It is now a certainty: Eco-Oils, the consortium that manages the used-lubricant recovery system, will be ready to start operating on 1 March 1994, when the former public system financed by an additional levy will be terminated. The founders of Eco-Oils, oil companies and independent lubricant manufacturers, have already hired the man who will head the organization, a manager from Elf, and they have chosen premises near those of the Lubricants Professional Committee, in Rueil-Malmaison (Hauts-de-Seine). The decree reorganizing the oil-recovery system, which was the subject of intense negotiations between professionals and the Environment Ministry, should be published in October. Contrary to a recommendation of the Pietrasanta report that was submitted to the environment minister last December, the incorporation of regenerated oil into lubricants will not become mandatory. The additional levy on lubricant stock produced or imported in France (currently 150 francs [Fr] per ton) will be replaced by a voluntary contribution from ``producers'' (whether manufacturers of importers) who will be responsible for what happens to their products. Eco-Oils will probably be the only organization, but it will not have a formal monopoly because, in theory, everyone has the right to collect its own waste. With a budget of close to Fr150 million, the consortium will sign procurement contracts with organizations collecting used oil, and supply contracts with organizations eliminating them. Will the recasting of the system make it possible for the oil-recovery network to get out of bankruptcy? Everybody hopes so. For the past two years, the crisis has kept getting worse. The expansion of the collection system (the quantities collected rose from 89,000 tons in 1986 to 173,000 tons in 1992) does not make it possible to lower costs, which are estimated to be about Fr500 per ton. At the same time, aging, technological obsolescence, and falling new-oil prices (due to falling crude-oil prices) proved fatal for regeneration units. Two of them, UFP [expansion not given] (in Lorraine) and Solunor (in the Nord), closed down last year. The last plant, CBL [expansion not given], in Seine-Maritime, has been reprieved and survives only by not paying anything for used oil. Overhauling it would |
FBIS3-41650_1 | Dioxin Emissions From Metallurgical Works Experience in Bremen Shows That Plants on the Rhine and Ruhr Could Also Be Cleaned Up | and caused cancer and mutations in offspring. The effects on man are known mainly from examinations of the population of Seveso, chemical industry workers, and Vietnam veterans (the defoliant Agent Orange was contaminated with dioxins). Dioxins and furanes occur as unwanted byproducts of reactions involving chlorine, chiefly in thermal processes such as garbage incineration or metal smelting. The contaminants are mainly bound to dust particles. There is at present little data available on dioxin emissions from metallurgical plants. In recent weeks and months discussion has centered mainly round steel sintering plants, for which the Environment Ministry of North Rhine-Westphalia undertook a measuring program last year. Sintering plants prepare ore dust for the blast furnace by heating it to 1200 to 1300 degrees together with coke slack, lime, and other additives. At the same time, sintering plants are also used to recycle a wide variety of iron-containing materials, so- called ``metallurgist's residues,'' which make up as much as 30 percent of the sinter mass. But apart from iron and other metals, these materials also contain a large number of other ingredients, including chlorine and hydrocarbons, creating the conditions for the production of dioxins, furanes, and other toxic chlorinated hydrocarbons. Dioxin concentrations of three to five nanograms TEQ per cubic meter gas were measured in the waste gas from sintering plants. This does not look so shocking at first sight as some garbage incineration plants are also still in this range (although about one half of Germany's 40 plants do now keep within the 0.1 nanogram limit). What makes sintering plants probably the largest single source of dioxins among thermal installations is their high volume of waste gas: About 10 million cubic meters per hour for all German sintering plants taken together. (By comparison, the total waste gas output of all German garbage incineration plants is in the region of 2 million cubic meters.) Thus, German sintering plants give off a total of 200 to 400 grams TEQ dioxins every year. According to environment minister Matthiesen, Krupp-Hoesch Stahl AG's Westphalia works in Dortmund alone gives off 250 grams of dioxin a year. Matthiesen says that the waste gas from the Duisburg copper plant also contains extremely high concentrations of the Seveso poison and in the hot briquetting plant of the Duisburg firm Berzelius Metalworks GmbH peaks of as much as 70 nanograms per cubic meter of air are reached. Disposal Bottleneck The |
FBIS3-41650_2 | Dioxin Emissions From Metallurgical Works Experience in Bremen Shows That Plants on the Rhine and Ruhr Could Also Be Cleaned Up | of three to five nanograms TEQ per cubic meter gas were measured in the waste gas from sintering plants. This does not look so shocking at first sight as some garbage incineration plants are also still in this range (although about one half of Germany's 40 plants do now keep within the 0.1 nanogram limit). What makes sintering plants probably the largest single source of dioxins among thermal installations is their high volume of waste gas: About 10 million cubic meters per hour for all German sintering plants taken together. (By comparison, the total waste gas output of all German garbage incineration plants is in the region of 2 million cubic meters.) Thus, German sintering plants give off a total of 200 to 400 grams TEQ dioxins every year. According to environment minister Matthiesen, Krupp-Hoesch Stahl AG's Westphalia works in Dortmund alone gives off 250 grams of dioxin a year. Matthiesen says that the waste gas from the Duisburg copper plant also contains extremely high concentrations of the Seveso poison and in the hot briquetting plant of the Duisburg firm Berzelius Metalworks GmbH peaks of as much as 70 nanograms per cubic meter of air are reached. Disposal Bottleneck The theoretically simplest solution to the sintering plant problem would be to keep recycled materials, or at least those containing chlorine, out of the plant. But what would be done with them then? There would immediately be a disposal bottleneck. But in the long term finding alternative means of disposing of some of these materials will be an important aspect of reducing sintering plant emissions. Krupp-Hoesch in Dortmund have already excluded a particularly suspect material from the sintering process. And North Rhine-Westphalia's Environment Ministry has instructed the labour inspectorate to issue regulations ensuring that no residues from other firms and no materials containing oil are added to the sinter mass. The ministry and the firm are hoping that a measurement program in November, experimenting with other operating parameters, will give them more information. The authorities and the firm agree that the measurements currently available are insufficient to form a basis for further measures. Krupp-Hoesch also wants to improve the effectiveness of its electrostatic filter by means of so-called continuous precipitation electrodes, but these will not be ready for use until the end of 1994. They have got a lot further at Kloeckner's steel works in Bremen, where they have been successfully |
FBIS3-41652_1 | Environment Technologies in New German Laender | Augsburg, is staking the success of its fourth production site wholly on recycled paper. Situated right on the Polish border, it is the first paper mill in Germany in which newsprint is produced primarily from waste paper. Not only the annual capacity of 250,000 tonnes but also the environment technology are impressive. The plant uses virtually closed water circuits in production, a chemical-mechanical and a two-stage biological clarification stage, and a modern combined heating and power station for recycling residual materials. The amount of residual effluent is about ten liters per kilogram of paper produced; Haindl claims the energy saving is about 80 percent compared to primary fiber production. An annual figure of 300,000 tonnes of waste paper from Berlin, Brandenburg, and the other eastern German laender are to be treated; even the parent company in Augsburg intends to use the process. Foron Household Appliances GmbH in Niederschmiedsberg near Chemnitz has also given the competition something to fear in terms of environment technology (see commentary). With its first CFC- and FC-free refrigerator in the world, it has filled a gap in the environment technology market. After the new generation of appliances was presented in April, 80,000 appliances were sold even before production began; the figure will be 150,000 by the end of the year. Obviously, it is not only the pioneering spirit that is driving the companies in the East towards innovation and commitment. Nowhere else are the investment conditions as good as they are in the new German laender. The industrial investment subsidies from the government, laender, and local authorities, and also the financial participation of the privatization agency in the start-up losses incurred by company purchases and the necessary remedial measures are creating a ``entrepreneurial'' climate. Rapid approval planning, which those in western Germany can only dream about, underscore these advantages. The individual regional governments are also endeavoring to support environment technologies. The need for in situ remedial measures and the future requirements in environment technology make this expenditure seem appropriate. The Brandenburg Ministry for Economic Affairs under Minister Hirche, for example, has so far supported the 150 projects in the ``Brandenburg Technology Initiative'' with funds totalling more than DM35 million. First Prize for Innovation Saxony's Environment Minister Vaatz has awarded an ``Innovation prize for exceptional achievement in waste avoidance and recycling'' for the first time in 1993. In the category of industrial and commercial enterprises, Eilenburg-based Electrolysis |
FBIS3-41652_2 | Environment Technologies in New German Laender | before production began; the figure will be 150,000 by the end of the year. Obviously, it is not only the pioneering spirit that is driving the companies in the East towards innovation and commitment. Nowhere else are the investment conditions as good as they are in the new German laender. The industrial investment subsidies from the government, laender, and local authorities, and also the financial participation of the privatization agency in the start-up losses incurred by company purchases and the necessary remedial measures are creating a ``entrepreneurial'' climate. Rapid approval planning, which those in western Germany can only dream about, underscore these advantages. The individual regional governments are also endeavoring to support environment technologies. The need for in situ remedial measures and the future requirements in environment technology make this expenditure seem appropriate. The Brandenburg Ministry for Economic Affairs under Minister Hirche, for example, has so far supported the 150 projects in the ``Brandenburg Technology Initiative'' with funds totalling more than DM35 million. First Prize for Innovation Saxony's Environment Minister Vaatz has awarded an ``Innovation prize for exceptional achievement in waste avoidance and recycling'' for the first time in 1993. In the category of industrial and commercial enterprises, Eilenburg-based Electrolysis and Environment Technology GmbH received first prize for a process for recycling electronic waste. In the future, the peroxodisulphate process will guarantee that circuit boards are processed in an economic and environmentally acceptable way. For the first time, it is possible to collect, sort and subsequently separate out, stage by stage, the metals contained in shredded printed circuit board material. Closed material circuits mean there are virtually no residues to dispose of; in the ideal case, ultra-pure metals such as copper, platinum, solder metal, and even gold are obtained. The patent for the copper recycling process has already been granted. The east Berlin-based company Wemex has developed a complete treatment plant for electronic waste. The pilot plant with an hourly throughput of 980 kg, which was presented to the public in June, is a world first in its complexity. Ninety-eight percent of the materials contained in the old electric and electronic appliances will be recovered. The use of dry-mechanical processes prevents harmful waste gases, vapours or slurries. High-performance air filters ensure minimal dust emissions. Interested parties from Germany and Europe have already been knocking at the company's door. There is also a production sharing agreement with a Japanese firm. Good |
FBIS3-41653_2 | Federal Ministry Funds Soil Reclamation Projects in New Laender | cyanide treatment works suffer from mercury pollution. The site of the former Ilsenburg Copper Mill and the area surrounding it have a high level of dioxin, furan, and other heavy metal pollution after decades of copper extraction from secondary sources such as PVC-covered copper cables or computer scrap without any environment protection measures whatsoever. Extreme concentrations of heavy metals are recorded in the sewers running into the Ilse drainage canal. The site is to be used in the future to extend the nearby Ilsenburg Rolling Mill, the major local employer. Dust containing dioxin blows over the urban area and the already polluted arable and pastureland, representing a high hazard potential. The drainage canal is at extreme risk, and the neighboring rolling mill, which is still operating, is under threat. The project that has now been approved will develop reliable processes for decontaminating industrial buildings that cannot be demolished in the normal way. Existing processes will also be adapted for scrap, stockpile, and industrial site decontamination and dioxin- and heavy metal-polluted residue treatment. The results of the project will be used in the reclamation of numerous other secondary raw material recovery mill sites in the new federal laender. A grant of DM4.2 m illion has been awarded for the first stage of the project. The Zichow ``Great Hell'' is a large geologically formed hollow measuring about 12,000 sq.m, which has been used since 1964 as a dump for the former Schwedt/Oder petrochemical combine. By 1989, 100,000 cu.m of production residue and hazardous waste in solid, paste, and liquid form had been dumped there without any environmental precautions being taken. The practice of burning chlorous fluids off on the surface of the lake thus created polluted the surrounding area with dioxins. The lack of a sealed foundation means that the dump drains directly into the groundwater and the drinking water conservation area. The initial phase will comprise the development of a practicable reclamation strategy for decontaminating liquid and solid deposits in the light of a hazard potential assessment, and the immediate implementation of protective measures for averting the danger. The second phase envisages a pilot reclamation of part of the toxic dump using a combination of various reclamation methods. The subsidy for the first phase amounts to DM2.2 million. Here again, the existence of numerous tar lakes makes for a high degree of transferrability. These three major reclamation projects complement the funding |
FBIS3-41666_5 | State Report on the State of the Environment of the Russian Federation in 1992 1.7. Flora and Fauna and Their Present State, Use, and Protection 1.8. Fish Resources and Their Present State, Use, Protection, and Reproduction 2.1. State Nature Preserves, National Parks, State Sanctuaries, and Natural Monuments Norilskiy Nikel Russian State Nonferrous and Precious Metals Production Concern 4.1. State of the Environment in Russia's Economic Regions, Republics, Krays, and Oblasts 4.2. State of Large Regions with Unsatisfactory Ecological Conditions 4.4. Ecological Conditions in Large Cities and Industrial Centers 6.4. Network of Government Bodies Regulating and Monitoring Resource Use and Their Activities | Measures 6.6. State Environmental Impact Studies 6.7. Environmental Monitoring 6.8. Environmental Security System Section 7. Science and Technology in the Resolution of Environmental Problems 7.1. Scientific-Technical Development Projects 7.2. Incorporation of Progressive Equipment and Technology Section 8. International Cooperation Section 9. Ecological Instruction, Training, and Educational Information Projects. Public Ecological Movement 9.1. Educational Information Projects 9.2. Ecological Training and Instruction 9.3. Public Ecological Movement Summary 1. Conclusions 2. Forecasts and Recommendations Addendum Introduction The state of the environment in the Russian Federation in 1992 was influenced considerably by general economic processes in the country. These processes displayed extremely contradictory development and were influenced by the following factors: the collapse of the political and economic-administrative structures of the former USSR; the existence of long-term negative trends dating back to the time when the Russian economy was still part of the Union; the effects of new economic processes engendered by radical economic reform. The collapse of the USSR diminished the actual chances of solving ecological problems on the interstate level and in Russia itself. The disruption of ties between republics had an adverse effect on the production of resource-conserving equipment, reagents for the treatment of waste liquids and gases, and other products needed for environmental protection. Difficulties arose in solving inter-republic ecological problems caused by the rising level of the Caspian Sea, the need to protect and reproduce the supply of water in coastal and trans-border aquifers, the transfer of pollutants through the atmosphere, and others. The long-term negative tendencies with the most adverse effects on the state of the environment are the structural irregularities in the Russian economy, reflected in the excessive development of resource-intensive, frequently ``dirty'' fields of production, the general technological underdevelopment of industry, agriculture, and construction, the high concentration of production units in some regions, and the underdeveloped infrastructure. In the course of radical reform, Russia encountered new processes connected with the destabilization of the financial system, the insolvency of enterprises, and the soaring rate of inflation, which did much to cause the slump in production and investment activity. This, in turn, had a negative effect on conservation measures. In 1992 the volume of industrial production in the national economy as a whole was 18.8 percent* below the 1991 figure, including decreases of 26.8 percent* in nonferrous metallurgy and 22.2 percent* in the chemical industry. The substantial reduction of output, however, did not result in a comparable reduction |
FBIS3-41666_97 | State Report on the State of the Environment of the Russian Federation in 1992 1.7. Flora and Fauna and Their Present State, Use, and Protection 1.8. Fish Resources and Their Present State, Use, Protection, and Reproduction 2.1. State Nature Preserves, National Parks, State Sanctuaries, and Natural Monuments Norilskiy Nikel Russian State Nonferrous and Precious Metals Production Concern 4.1. State of the Environment in Russia's Economic Regions, Republics, Krays, and Oblasts 4.2. State of Large Regions with Unsatisfactory Ecological Conditions 4.4. Ecological Conditions in Large Cities and Industrial Centers 6.4. Network of Government Bodies Regulating and Monitoring Resource Use and Their Activities | from fish farms. The artificial reproduction of Pacific salmon was conducted at fish farms in Sakhalin, Kamchatka, and Magadan oblasts and Maritime and Khabarovsk krays, which produced more than 630 million fry of humpbacked, calico, silver, and red salmon. The artificial reproduction of fish stocks puts around 70,000 tonnes back into circulation each year. The development of the artificial reproduction of fish stocks is being impeded by the progressive pollution of sources of water. This destroys much of the breeding stock in hatcheries, and the surviving fry do not always satisfy the necessary requirements. In 1992 virtually no measures were taken to improve the conditions of the natural reproduction of fish resources. Hatchery construction and remodeling projects were suspended. Effects of Ecological State of Basins on Fish Resources The state of fish reserves depends on the degree of anthropogenic influence on the ecosystems of water basins. The White and Barents sea basins: There is no commercial fishing in Kola Bay because of severe surface and ground water pollution. The whole Kola River, the largest salmon spawning bed in Murmansk Oblast, is polluted. Fish stocks in the Pechora River basin are in a depressed state as a result of the dumping of industrial sewage, stream-driving, and the extraction of sand and gravel. The catch of sig and nelma is only one-third or one-fourth of the previous level. There have been changes in the ichthyofauna of the Northern Dvina River--the percentage of salmon and sig in the catch decreased from 29 percent in 1985 to 7.4 percent in 1990. In the Onega River the catch of plaice was 27 times larger in the 1960's than it is now, and the catch of salmon and sig was more than 8 times as great in the 1960's. Salmon fishing in the river has been prohibited since 1989. The Baltic basin: The pollution of coastal areas in Kaliningrad Oblast is localized and is not having a perceptible effect on the size of the catch yet. In the eastern part of the Gulf of Riga the content of several heavy metals in the fish is approaching the maximum allowable concentration and is jeopardizing fishing in these regions. Pollution has reduced the effectiveness of salmon and sig spawning in Lake Ladoga, and the reproduction of bream has deteriorated dramatically in the Petrokrepostnaya inlet. The Azov basin: The regulation of runoff from the Don and Kuban rivers by |
FBIS3-41666_121 | State Report on the State of the Environment of the Russian Federation in 1992 1.7. Flora and Fauna and Their Present State, Use, and Protection 1.8. Fish Resources and Their Present State, Use, Protection, and Reproduction 2.1. State Nature Preserves, National Parks, State Sanctuaries, and Natural Monuments Norilskiy Nikel Russian State Nonferrous and Precious Metals Production Concern 4.1. State of the Environment in Russia's Economic Regions, Republics, Krays, and Oblasts 4.2. State of Large Regions with Unsatisfactory Ecological Conditions 4.4. Ecological Conditions in Large Cities and Industrial Centers 6.4. Network of Government Bodies Regulating and Monitoring Resource Use and Their Activities | damage on the vitality of existing ecosystems. In recent years the ichthyofauna of the Azov and Black seas has suffered from the mnemyopsis leydii brought here inadvertently from the United States in ballast fluid. Its mass proliferation in the Azov Sea in 1991-92 reduced the quantity of plankton to 0.04 mg/m[.sup]3[/], which is below the earlier average by a factor of almost 10,000. Changes in the trophic structure of pelagian biocenosis have reduced stocks of anchovies and sardines dramatically by depriving them of their food base. According to FAO estimates, the losses of commercial fish in the Azov Sea will be equivalent to 40-60 million U.S. dollars a year. The Rapana bezoar in the Black Sea was one of the reasons for the disappearance of the Gudauta oyster beds. Similar phenomena have been observed in fresh-water basins. When sandre and bream settled in the Obskaya inlet, they moved to the lower reaches of the Ob River, where they are inflicting considerable damage by eating the roe and fry of the river sig. The accidental migration of carp to the small steppe lakes of West Siberia is reducing the yield of fish from these lakes by 30-80 percent because the carp are eating most of the minnow roe and fry. Insects brought in by accident are frequently agricultural pests. They include the American white moth, a pest to mulberry, fruit, and decorative trees and shrubs, the potato moth, and the Capri beetle--the most dangerous pest to food supplies. The distribution of accidental species of insects in the Russian Federation in 1992 was the following: Colorado beetle--on an area of 2.46 million hectares (in 58 krays, oblasts, and republics); North American white moth--108,000 hectares; Phylloxera--94,000 hectares; San Jose scale--131,000 hectares. Ubiquitous foreign species are taken off the quarantine list, and after this happens it is no longer possible to isolate and evaluate the damage caused by each separate species. Most of the foreign insects that have invaded Russian territory are not being monitored. There are no forecasts of the probability of new accidental species and the degree of the consequent damage. In 1992 the Plant Quarantine Service monitored 11 species of insects causing obvious damage in extensive areas of the Russian Federation, and 13 species with the same status in neighboring countries. Not one of the species that entered this country and settled here has been eliminated. The areas of proliferation of |
FBIS3-41666_122 | State Report on the State of the Environment of the Russian Federation in 1992 1.7. Flora and Fauna and Their Present State, Use, and Protection 1.8. Fish Resources and Their Present State, Use, Protection, and Reproduction 2.1. State Nature Preserves, National Parks, State Sanctuaries, and Natural Monuments Norilskiy Nikel Russian State Nonferrous and Precious Metals Production Concern 4.1. State of the Environment in Russia's Economic Regions, Republics, Krays, and Oblasts 4.2. State of Large Regions with Unsatisfactory Ecological Conditions 4.4. Ecological Conditions in Large Cities and Industrial Centers 6.4. Network of Government Bodies Regulating and Monitoring Resource Use and Their Activities | are eating most of the minnow roe and fry. Insects brought in by accident are frequently agricultural pests. They include the American white moth, a pest to mulberry, fruit, and decorative trees and shrubs, the potato moth, and the Capri beetle--the most dangerous pest to food supplies. The distribution of accidental species of insects in the Russian Federation in 1992 was the following: Colorado beetle--on an area of 2.46 million hectares (in 58 krays, oblasts, and republics); North American white moth--108,000 hectares; Phylloxera--94,000 hectares; San Jose scale--131,000 hectares. Ubiquitous foreign species are taken off the quarantine list, and after this happens it is no longer possible to isolate and evaluate the damage caused by each separate species. Most of the foreign insects that have invaded Russian territory are not being monitored. There are no forecasts of the probability of new accidental species and the degree of the consequent damage. In 1992 the Plant Quarantine Service monitored 11 species of insects causing obvious damage in extensive areas of the Russian Federation, and 13 species with the same status in neighboring countries. Not one of the species that entered this country and settled here has been eliminated. The areas of proliferation of all of the quarantine species without exception are increasing each year. The habitats and numbers of foreign species of arthropods are growing, and they are causing perceptible harm to human health. One species of tick, the Ornithonyssus bacoti, has been found in homes in the Donbass in recent years. It is a carrier of rickettsialpox. It usually feeds on sinanthropic rodents, but it also attacks man, and its bites cause dermatitis. A study of cases of dermatitis in Moscow revealed the presence of the tick in the capital. Eighty zones of tick-borne dermatitis were recorded in Moscow between February 1990 and February 1993 and the tick itself was found. Southern species of ants are more common in Russian cities now. In addition to the red house ants, which can be found anywhere in the capital, Hypoponeva Eduardi Forel from the Mediterranean countries and the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus and Hasins Alienus Foster, which is most commonly found in the South, can now be seen in heated buildings in Moscow. In Moscow the classic beetle roach has been joined by the American cockroach (Periplaneta americana L.) and some exotic species--the Nanphoeta cinerea Olivier and a resident of warmer climes |
FBIS3-41666_123 | State Report on the State of the Environment of the Russian Federation in 1992 1.7. Flora and Fauna and Their Present State, Use, and Protection 1.8. Fish Resources and Their Present State, Use, Protection, and Reproduction 2.1. State Nature Preserves, National Parks, State Sanctuaries, and Natural Monuments Norilskiy Nikel Russian State Nonferrous and Precious Metals Production Concern 4.1. State of the Environment in Russia's Economic Regions, Republics, Krays, and Oblasts 4.2. State of Large Regions with Unsatisfactory Ecological Conditions 4.4. Ecological Conditions in Large Cities and Industrial Centers 6.4. Network of Government Bodies Regulating and Monitoring Resource Use and Their Activities | all of the quarantine species without exception are increasing each year. The habitats and numbers of foreign species of arthropods are growing, and they are causing perceptible harm to human health. One species of tick, the Ornithonyssus bacoti, has been found in homes in the Donbass in recent years. It is a carrier of rickettsialpox. It usually feeds on sinanthropic rodents, but it also attacks man, and its bites cause dermatitis. A study of cases of dermatitis in Moscow revealed the presence of the tick in the capital. Eighty zones of tick-borne dermatitis were recorded in Moscow between February 1990 and February 1993 and the tick itself was found. Southern species of ants are more common in Russian cities now. In addition to the red house ants, which can be found anywhere in the capital, Hypoponeva Eduardi Forel from the Mediterranean countries and the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus and Hasins Alienus Foster, which is most commonly found in the South, can now be seen in heated buildings in Moscow. In Moscow the classic beetle roach has been joined by the American cockroach (Periplaneta americana L.) and some exotic species--the Nanphoeta cinerea Olivier and a resident of warmer climes with a resemblance to the red cockroach, Supella supellectilinum Serv. The latter's habitat is in the Tropics and Subtropics, but it has also been found in Istanbul, Teheran, and Paris. The number of Culex piens molertus mosquitoes is still rising in Moscow. Whereas mosquito abatement projects were conducted on an area of 1,400 m[.sup]2[/] in 1972, the figure was 926,000 m[.sup]2[/] in 1992. The Smirnov beetle (Altagenus smirnovi Zhant) from Kenya has settled down in Russia and is damaging woolen, fur, and leather goods in homes, warehouses, and fur factories. Because of the danger of the pollution of the environment with the waste of enterprises engaged in microbiological synthesis, air quality is monitored carefully in the locations of enterprises producing protein-vitamin concentrates (BVK)--the Kirishi Biochemical Plant, the Blagoveshchensk Biochemical Combine, and the Kstovo, Angarsk, and Svetloyarsk BVK plants. No BVK particulate was found in 1992 in the industrial zone of industrial zone of Kirishi, Kstovo, Angarsk, and Blagoveshchensk or in the emissions of the Angarsk BVK plant. Concentrations of BVK dust in some samples of the particulate from the Kirishi Biochemical Plant did not exceed public health standards. Concentrations of BVK dust in the industrial zone of the Svetlyy Yar |
FBIS3-41666_187 | State Report on the State of the Environment of the Russian Federation in 1992 1.7. Flora and Fauna and Their Present State, Use, and Protection 1.8. Fish Resources and Their Present State, Use, Protection, and Reproduction 2.1. State Nature Preserves, National Parks, State Sanctuaries, and Natural Monuments Norilskiy Nikel Russian State Nonferrous and Precious Metals Production Concern 4.1. State of the Environment in Russia's Economic Regions, Republics, Krays, and Oblasts 4.2. State of Large Regions with Unsatisfactory Ecological Conditions 4.4. Ecological Conditions in Large Cities and Industrial Centers 6.4. Network of Government Bodies Regulating and Monitoring Resource Use and Their Activities | municipal services and public utilities in 42 different regions. The highest number of accidents (50.5 percent) occurred in the heat supply network, and there were 33 accidents (32 percent) in facilities of the water supply network and sewer system. An analysis of these accidents indicates that the dilapidated state of networks and equipment was the cause of 31 accidents in the heat and power engineering network and 7 accidents in the water supply network and sewer system. Violations of operating regulations caused 34 accidents. Five accidents were caused by explosions in sewer pumping stations and by gas explosions in residential buildings. Spills of petroleum products caused two accidents, and another 19 accidents had natural causes. The construction of sewers and sewage treatment plants cost 17.9 billion* rubles in state capital investments in 1992 (29 billion* in 1991, or an adjusted figure of 28 billion*), with 12.9* billion rubles provided by local soviets (20.8 billion* in 1991). The operation of the sewage treatment plants of municipal systems (including leased enterprises), capable of handling 314,600* m[.sup]3[/]/day, and 464.9* kilometers of sewer lines was financed by state capital investments in Russia. The respective figures for 1991 were 527* m[.sup]3[/]/day and 661.2* kilometers. In 1992, 305* kilometers (318* km in 1991) of sewer traps and sewage treatment facilities with a total capacity of 209,000* m[.sup]3[/]/day were installed and began operating. In view of the fact that the public utilities are part of the system of public supply lines, a comprehensive program should be adopted on the federal level for the economic support of the municipal economy, including a separate group of measures for the quicker improvement of ecological conditions in cities. 3.11. Production and Consumption Waste The waste products of production and consumption are among the serious technogenic problems for the environment. Due to the lack of economic incentives for enterprises, the low level of technology, the shortage of modern waste treatment equipment, and the overall lack of high standards in production and consumption, only a few dozen types of waste products are processed and used. Because of this, the rate of their creation and accumulation (including large-scale waste products) within the territory of Russia has not changed. Around a billion cubic meters of waste products, for example, have accumulated in the dumps of coal industry enterprises, and less than 5 percent of this waste is ever used. The reduction of local disposal has |
FBIS3-41666_195 | State Report on the State of the Environment of the Russian Federation in 1992 1.7. Flora and Fauna and Their Present State, Use, and Protection 1.8. Fish Resources and Their Present State, Use, Protection, and Reproduction 2.1. State Nature Preserves, National Parks, State Sanctuaries, and Natural Monuments Norilskiy Nikel Russian State Nonferrous and Precious Metals Production Concern 4.1. State of the Environment in Russia's Economic Regions, Republics, Krays, and Oblasts 4.2. State of Large Regions with Unsatisfactory Ecological Conditions 4.4. Ecological Conditions in Large Cities and Industrial Centers 6.4. Network of Government Bodies Regulating and Monitoring Resource Use and Their Activities | year. At this time 124 million m[.sup]3[/] are sent to special disposal sites, and the rest of the waste is incinerated or sent to garbage disposal plants. The dumps and the runoff from the sewer system are polluting the ground water in several places, including 20 large areas near Pskov, Ivanovo, Smolensk, Derbent, Ulan-Ude, Irkutsk, Yessentuki, and other cities. Section 4. Regional and Interstate Ecological Problems 4.1. State of the Environment in Russia's Economic Regions, Republics, Krays, and Oblasts The intensive growth of Russia's industrial potential in the 1930s, the relocation of many industrial enterprises in the Urals and Siberia during the war, the restoration of ravaged production units in the postwar period, and the accelerated economic development of the country in subsequent years required the use of colossal quantities of natural resources, which increased the anthropogenic pressure on the environment dramatically in the absence of the necessary environmental standards and requirements and of resource-conserving, low-waste technology and efficient waste treatment plants. The intensive development of industry in virtually all parts of Russia and the creation of large industrial centers in many regions were accompanied by the depletion of natural resources, high levels of water, air, and soil pollution, and a resulting rise in the rate of illness. Ecological conditions in the country have not changed for the better in the last few years, and in many parts of Russia they have grown worse. This applies not only to specific cities or industrial centers or specific sections of river basins or seas; there are major environmental problems in vast territories inhabited by tens of millions of people. Large quantities of polluted sewage are being dumped into surface bodies of water and the percentage of this waste in the total amount of sewage is constantly rising in Russia as a whole and in separate republics, krays, and oblasts. There is not one republic, kray, or oblast where natural reservoirs have not been polluted by sewage. The largest quantities of polluted sewage (in percentages of the total for the Russian Federation) are being dumped in the following regions: Moscow Oblast--11.6* Krasnodar Kray--11.6* Leningrad Oblast--7.5* Irkutsk Oblast--5.6* Krasnoyarsk Kray--3.9* Nizhniy Novgorod Oblast--3.5* Samara Oblast--3.3* Sverdlovsk Oblast--3.0* Tatarstan Republic--3.6* Kemerovo Oblast--2.8* The economic activities of all production branches in industry contribute to this category of sewage. In Moscow and Leningrad Oblasts, for example, most of this sewage comes from municipal housing services and public |
FBIS3-41666_228 | State Report on the State of the Environment of the Russian Federation in 1992 1.7. Flora and Fauna and Their Present State, Use, and Protection 1.8. Fish Resources and Their Present State, Use, Protection, and Reproduction 2.1. State Nature Preserves, National Parks, State Sanctuaries, and Natural Monuments Norilskiy Nikel Russian State Nonferrous and Precious Metals Production Concern 4.1. State of the Environment in Russia's Economic Regions, Republics, Krays, and Oblasts 4.2. State of Large Regions with Unsatisfactory Ecological Conditions 4.4. Ecological Conditions in Large Cities and Industrial Centers 6.4. Network of Government Bodies Regulating and Monitoring Resource Use and Their Activities | from ports, logging organizations, and oil terminals. Severobaykalsk, located on the shore of Lake Baykal, is a danger to the lake's ecosystem. The environmental pollution here is comprehensive: The central sewer system serves only part of the city, waste treatment facilities are overloaded, some sewage is dumped into natural depressions in the landscape, and there are no storm drains. The unfavorable conditions of the dispersion of pollutants, particularly from low sources, are also characteristic of Chita Oblast and contribute to the high levels of air pollution in its cities and industrial settlements. The pollution of the Khilok and Chikoy rivers, which are part of the Baykal Conservation Zone, soil erosion, and forest fires are major concerns in the oblast. Far Eastern Economic Region Problems in water use and the use of land and forest resources are the most urgent and virtually universal concerns in this region. Solid matter, carbon monoxide, and sulfur dioxide are the most common pollutants in the emissions of stationary sources. The major contributors to these emissions are enterprises in Maritime Kray (25.8 percent*), Khabarovsk Kray (22.9 percent*), and Magadan Oblast (13.8 percent*). The Sakha Republic (Yakutia) is one of the richest regions in the country in commercial mineral reserves, including some unique minerals. The republic is the source of raw materials for the production of many metals (zinc, iridium, tin, gold, and platinum), as well as diamonds, coal, natural gas, and gas condensate. The continued incomplete use of commercial minerals, resulting in the unwarranted growth of extraction volumes, the premature cessation of work on deposits, and the accumulation of waste, is a problem throughout Russia. Yakutia, like other Siberian territories, is in need of a radically improved system of forest fire protection. In 1992 there were 1,040* recorded fires in the republic on an area encompassing 215,000* hectares of forests--several times larger than the annual felling area. The dumping of sewage, including polluted sewage, has increased in Amur Oblast. The main polluters are open-cut coal mines, gold mining enterprises, railway transport, and public utilities. Surface water in the environs of placer mines using amalgamation processes for gold mining contain excessive concentrations of heavy metals, including mercury. Around 50 percent of the agricultural land in the oblast, the main agricultural region in the Far East, is marshy, waterlogged, and highly acidic. The forests, the oblast's most valuable resource, are subject to regular fires covering large areas and |
FBIS3-41666_232 | State Report on the State of the Environment of the Russian Federation in 1992 1.7. Flora and Fauna and Their Present State, Use, and Protection 1.8. Fish Resources and Their Present State, Use, Protection, and Reproduction 2.1. State Nature Preserves, National Parks, State Sanctuaries, and Natural Monuments Norilskiy Nikel Russian State Nonferrous and Precious Metals Production Concern 4.1. State of the Environment in Russia's Economic Regions, Republics, Krays, and Oblasts 4.2. State of Large Regions with Unsatisfactory Ecological Conditions 4.4. Ecological Conditions in Large Cities and Industrial Centers 6.4. Network of Government Bodies Regulating and Monitoring Resource Use and Their Activities | the adjacent expanses of the Baltic Sea by causing the asphyxiation of aquatic animals in the Pregolya River and some parts of Kursk Gulf. 4.2. State of Large Regions with Unsatisfactory Ecological Conditions The anthropogenic influences in several regions of the Russian Federation exceeded allowable limits and ecological restrictions long ago, thereby creating a critical situation in which the landscape is being changed in significant and almost irreparable ways, the danger of the depletion or loss of natural resources and unique natural objects is rapidly mounting, and the living conditions of the population are deteriorating perceptibly. The regions within the territory of Russia include the Azov-Black Sea zone, the North Caspian region, Kalmykia, the central cis-Volga and cis-Kama zone, the Kola Peninsula, the Urals, the Kuzbass, the basins of Lake Baykal and the Angara River, and some others. These regions are distinguished by a complex group of ecological problems, caused primarily by the polluting influence of large industrial centers and by the intensive use of natural resources (recreation, mining, and agriculture). These adverse influences are usually compounded in most of the areas by high population density. The high concentration of production units and high population density in these regions, combined with the remainder principle of environmental project funding, has led to the dramatic deterioration of ecological conditions because the ecological capacity of natural complexes has either been exhausted or is close to this state. The use of increasing quantities of water and the failure to recycle water, the increase in hydraulic engineering construction projects, the larger quantities of polluted sewage discharged into rivers and ponds, and the contamination of bodies of water with fertilizers and toxic chemicals from agricultural fields and the polluted runoff from urbanized areas have had a severely adverse effect on the state of the Volga, Kama, Oka, Kuban, and Angara rivers and other bodies of water, and in some regions they have led to serious problems in supplying the population with potable water. The unique natural recreational areas of the Russian coastline and waters of the Black and Azov seas, which have experienced excessive anthropogenic pressure for a long time, have lost much of their resource potential, and this, in turn, could have grave interstate ecological and social consequences. The ecological problems in the industrial zones of the Kola Peninsula were caused largely by the vulnerability of the landscape to technogenic influences and its weak self-cleaning |
FBIS3-41666_248 | State Report on the State of the Environment of the Russian Federation in 1992 1.7. Flora and Fauna and Their Present State, Use, and Protection 1.8. Fish Resources and Their Present State, Use, Protection, and Reproduction 2.1. State Nature Preserves, National Parks, State Sanctuaries, and Natural Monuments Norilskiy Nikel Russian State Nonferrous and Precious Metals Production Concern 4.1. State of the Environment in Russia's Economic Regions, Republics, Krays, and Oblasts 4.2. State of Large Regions with Unsatisfactory Ecological Conditions 4.4. Ecological Conditions in Large Cities and Industrial Centers 6.4. Network of Government Bodies Regulating and Monitoring Resource Use and Their Activities | for nitrogen dioxide, and 32.5-98.0 percent for the combine effects of dust, sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, and nitrogen dioxide. When data on requests for medical treatment, the characteristics of emissions, and air quality were collated in Perm Oblast, simulation models indicated that 10 of 19 categories of illness (52.6 percent) in children and 11 of the 19 (57.8 percent) in adults had a distinct relationship to environmental factors. Furthermore, the cases of urogenital disorders (in Krasnokamsk) and osteomuscular disease (in Chusovoy and Aleksandrovsk) in children were caused by environmental pollution. In the cities of the Kuzbass, where the public water supply comes from the Tom River, the quality of this water is having an adverse effect on the health of children, and this is particularly apparent in Yurga. In the last five years indicators of the frequency of premature births and birth defects rose to 1.5-6 times the previous levels. Ever since the Chernobyl disaster the population of 17 oblasts in Russia, especially the population of the western regions of Bryansk and Kaluga oblasts, has continued to be exposed to external and internal radiation by long-lived radionuclides--cesium-137, cesium-134, and strontium-90--and transuranic elements--plutonium-238, 239, and 240, americium-241, and others. For six years the residents of the most highly polluted regions of Bryansk Oblast were exposed to an average effective dose of 42 mZv (not counting the effects of iodine-131 on the thyroid). The cumulative effective dose over the six years was 5,000 man-Zv. If all protective measures are cancelled in 1993, the anticipated cumulative effective dose in subsequent years will add another 7,000 man-Zv, but if these measures remain in place it will add only 3,00-4,000 man-Zv. The medical consequences of this cumulative dose of radiation could amount to 400-6,000 fatal cases of oncological disease and 100-150 genetic developmental defects in the 70 years following the accident. The anticipated rise in the rate of all types of pathology will be from 2 to 4 percent of the spontaneous level. The cumulative dose of thyroid radiation by iodine-131 for the same group was 22,000 man-Zv in 1986, which could cause around 70 cases of thyroid cancer, around 7 of which would be fatal. The anticipated increase in spontaneous thyroid cancer in this group will be from 20 to 40 percent, and the rate will rise by 1.5-2 times for people born between 1980 and 1986. Preliminary data on the rate of illness |
FBIS3-41666_250 | State Report on the State of the Environment of the Russian Federation in 1992 1.7. Flora and Fauna and Their Present State, Use, and Protection 1.8. Fish Resources and Their Present State, Use, Protection, and Reproduction 2.1. State Nature Preserves, National Parks, State Sanctuaries, and Natural Monuments Norilskiy Nikel Russian State Nonferrous and Precious Metals Production Concern 4.1. State of the Environment in Russia's Economic Regions, Republics, Krays, and Oblasts 4.2. State of Large Regions with Unsatisfactory Ecological Conditions 4.4. Ecological Conditions in Large Cities and Industrial Centers 6.4. Network of Government Bodies Regulating and Monitoring Resource Use and Their Activities | (in 1992) in the territories of radioactive pollution in Bryansk Oblast did not reveal the anticipated rise in the rate of thyroid cancer and malignant neoplasms of the hemopoietic and lymphatic systems in children or adults. The most unfavorable radiation conditions resulting from the accidents at the Mayak Scientific Production Association in Chelyabinsk, distinguished by high levels of radiation and prolonged exposure, developed in the coastal regions of the Techa River (in Chelyabinsk and Kurgan oblasts). The average absorbed dose of radiation for the population of the upper reaches of the river had reached 170 cZv by 1992. Cases of chronic radiation sickness had been recorded here earlier, and now there are signs of a higher rate of oncological disease, including leukemia. Radioactive tracks from nuclear tests on the Semipalatinsk test range prior to 1964 reached regions of Altay Kray and part of the territory of the Altay Republic. Now these areas are displaying a striking increase in oncological diseases of the pulmonary, female reproductive, lymphatic, and hematopoeic systems. Special programs are being conducted by scientific institutions and other organizations in these regions for in-depth studies of the state of public health and the possible effects of radiation on public health. There is a similar situation in regions of the Far North, where it will be essential to study the population of the exposure zone of the Novaya Zemlya nuclear test site. This is also the location of the geographic accumulation of all of the global fall-out from nuclear tests conducted by all countries of the northern hemisphere in the far northern latitudes. Concerned ministries and departments are drawing up a special comprehensive program for this and are already doing some of the necessary research. [No 25, 1993 pp 6-7, 10-13] Section 5. Industrial Accidents, Natural Emergencies, and Their Ecological Consequences and Prevention 5.1. Accidents In 1992, according to the data of the Information Center of the Russian State Committee on Emergency Situations (GKChS), there were 769 emergency situations (ChS) of a technogenic nature in the Russian Federation, with 2,523 victims, including 870 fatalities (the respective figures in 1991 were 2,693 and 1,023) (see figures 5.1.1-5.1.3). Figure 5.1.1. Technogenic Figure 5.1.2. Fatalities in Most of the industrial ChS were fires and explosions (314) and transport accidents (298). The victims of transport accidents numbered 1,762, including 698 fatalities. There were 1,117 victims of traffic accidents on highways, including 374 fatalities, and |
FBIS3-41666_251 | State Report on the State of the Environment of the Russian Federation in 1992 1.7. Flora and Fauna and Their Present State, Use, and Protection 1.8. Fish Resources and Their Present State, Use, Protection, and Reproduction 2.1. State Nature Preserves, National Parks, State Sanctuaries, and Natural Monuments Norilskiy Nikel Russian State Nonferrous and Precious Metals Production Concern 4.1. State of the Environment in Russia's Economic Regions, Republics, Krays, and Oblasts 4.2. State of Large Regions with Unsatisfactory Ecological Conditions 4.4. Ecological Conditions in Large Cities and Industrial Centers 6.4. Network of Government Bodies Regulating and Monitoring Resource Use and Their Activities | health. There is a similar situation in regions of the Far North, where it will be essential to study the population of the exposure zone of the Novaya Zemlya nuclear test site. This is also the location of the geographic accumulation of all of the global fall-out from nuclear tests conducted by all countries of the northern hemisphere in the far northern latitudes. Concerned ministries and departments are drawing up a special comprehensive program for this and are already doing some of the necessary research. [No 25, 1993 pp 6-7, 10-13] Section 5. Industrial Accidents, Natural Emergencies, and Their Ecological Consequences and Prevention 5.1. Accidents In 1992, according to the data of the Information Center of the Russian State Committee on Emergency Situations (GKChS), there were 769 emergency situations (ChS) of a technogenic nature in the Russian Federation, with 2,523 victims, including 870 fatalities (the respective figures in 1991 were 2,693 and 1,023) (see figures 5.1.1-5.1.3). Figure 5.1.1. Technogenic Figure 5.1.2. Fatalities in Most of the industrial ChS were fires and explosions (314) and transport accidents (298). The victims of transport accidents numbered 1,762, including 698 fatalities. There were 1,117 victims of traffic accidents on highways, including 374 fatalities, and the respective figures for air disasters were 357 and 248. Fires and explosions caused the greatest financial damage to the national economy. According to the data of Gosgortekhnadzor [Russian Federal Mining and Industrial Oversight], there were 430 production-related accidents with 652 fatalities. The slight decrease in human losses in the technical sphere was due to the considerable decrease in production rates and volumes. In highly hazardous branches there was a tendency toward more accidents with graver consequences. There were 126 accidents at enterprises of the coal industry, including 22 explosions and deflagrations of methane and coal oil, 57 fires, 14 cave-ins, 3 unexpected coal and gas blowouts, and 4 water and slurry breakthroughs. In all, 263 people died in these accidents (185 in 1991). The number of accidents at the mining enterprises of ferrous metallurgy, agrochemical resources, and building materials production rose from 19 to 28. Ten accidents at enterprises of the metallurgical industry (five in 1991) claimed 30 lives. The number of accident victims increased in mining and nonmetalliferous industries in 1992: by 18 percent at the mining enterprises of ferrous metallurgy, by a factor of 2.5 in agrochemical resource production, and by 100 percent in the building materials |
FBIS3-41666_279 | State Report on the State of the Environment of the Russian Federation in 1992 1.7. Flora and Fauna and Their Present State, Use, and Protection 1.8. Fish Resources and Their Present State, Use, Protection, and Reproduction 2.1. State Nature Preserves, National Parks, State Sanctuaries, and Natural Monuments Norilskiy Nikel Russian State Nonferrous and Precious Metals Production Concern 4.1. State of the Environment in Russia's Economic Regions, Republics, Krays, and Oblasts 4.2. State of Large Regions with Unsatisfactory Ecological Conditions 4.4. Ecological Conditions in Large Cities and Industrial Centers 6.4. Network of Government Bodies Regulating and Monitoring Resource Use and Their Activities | to 2000). 11. ``Waste.'' (Phase I--1993-1995, phase II--1996-2000.) 12. ``The Protection of National Economic Facilities and Populated Communities on the Coast of the Caspian Sea in the Russian Federation.'' (Phase I--1993-1995, phase II--1996-2000.) 13. ``The Development of a Hydrometeorological System for the National Economy of the Russian Federation (1994-2000).'' (Phase I--1994-1995, phase II--1996-2000.) 14. ``Conversion--Ecology.'' (Phase I--1993-1994, phase II--1995-1996.) 15. ``Program of Innovations in the Handling, Recycling, and Disposal of Radioactive Waste and Spent Nuclear Materials (1993-1995).'' (Russian Federation Government Directive No 1149-r of 5 November 1991.) 6.3. Fundamental Standards and Procedures The fundamental standards and procedures of environmental protection in the Russian Federation are still being updated. The earlier environmental standards and rules of economic development, which were borrowed from various spheres and branches of activity, have been among the factors causing the present ecological crisis in the national economy of the Russian Federation. A state ecological appraisal of existing legal standards, procedural instructions, and technical standards for the prevention of air pollution by the Russian Ministry of Ecology in 1992 revealed that most of these documents did not meet current ecological requirements, could not secure safe societal development, were outdated, and were of no help to a project planner in the advance assessment of the possible adverse ecological effects of economic or other decisions. Only 8 of the 328 inspected documents in this sphere meet present requirements, 291 must be updated, and 29 were recommended for rescission by ecological experts. The Law of the Russian Federation ``On Environmental Protection'' defines the criteria to be used in judging environmental quality and the ability of resource users to use these criteria in their economic activity. The quality criteria are based on three indicators: medical (the maximum threat to human health and the human genetic code), technological (the potential to limit effects on the human being and the conditions of human survival), scientific-technical (the ability of technical equipment to monitor the observance of these limits in terms of all parameters). Environmental standards impose requirements on the source of danger and limit the maximum impact. These are the standards defining the maximum permissible chemical, physical, biological, and radiation effects, emission standards, hazardous waste disposal standards, etc. The ability of these standards to limit harmful effects is secured by three factors: -- the correspondence of standards to the current level of science and technology and to international standards; -- the approval of the |
FBIS3-41666_306 | State Report on the State of the Environment of the Russian Federation in 1992 1.7. Flora and Fauna and Their Present State, Use, and Protection 1.8. Fish Resources and Their Present State, Use, Protection, and Reproduction 2.1. State Nature Preserves, National Parks, State Sanctuaries, and Natural Monuments Norilskiy Nikel Russian State Nonferrous and Precious Metals Production Concern 4.1. State of the Environment in Russia's Economic Regions, Republics, Krays, and Oblasts 4.2. State of Large Regions with Unsatisfactory Ecological Conditions 4.4. Ecological Conditions in Large Cities and Industrial Centers 6.4. Network of Government Bodies Regulating and Monitoring Resource Use and Their Activities | 14 34 0 estimates Distribution of 2 7 39 fund resources Oversight of fund 6 7 14 operations Besides this, the oversight of fund activities is exercised in two cases by environmental protection committees in conjunction with soviets and the administration, in six cases by the committee and the administration, in two cases by the soviets and the administration, and in two cases by all three functional bodies. Because the law does not define the specific procedure for the payment of fees by enterprises, it would be wise to add a description of the mechanism, approved by the Russian Federation Ministry of Finance and Russian Federation Minprirody after consultations with the Russian Federation Central Bank, for the transfer of money by enterprises, institutions, organizations, citizens, and foreign juridical persons and citizens to state ecological funds. Besides this, the delineation of ownership rights to natural resources could serve as the basis for legislative definitions of different ratios in the distribution of federal property fees among funds on various levels. The abovementioned ``Procedure for the Collection of Contributions to State Funds,'' drafted with the participation of the executive board of directors of the RF Federal Ecological Fund, and state statistical report form No 1-Ecofund on the creation and use of fund resources, approved by the Russian Goskomstat, should reinforce the legal standards and information base of fund management. Existing laws and legislative instruments regulating privatization say virtually nothing about environmental protection. For this reason, in 1992 the Russian Ministry of Ecology drafted a supplement to the draft state privatization program for 1993, in accordance with which the privatization of ecologically hazardous enterprises should be conditional upon the completion of programs for the improvement of ecological conditions at these enterprises and the creation of special ecological sanitation funds. The Russian Ministry of Ecology and Goskomimushchestvo [RF State Committee on the Administration of State Property] will establish the procedure for considering the ecological factor in the privatization of state and municipal enterprises in 1993, including ecological appraisals, the inclusion of requirements pertaining to the ecological sanitation of enterprises in the terms of competitive bidding and in privatization plans, the assignment of higher values to environmental protection assets, and the creation of ecological sanitation funds at enterprises. 6.6. State Environmental Impact Studies Environmental impact studies will be conducted during the drafting and substantiation of decisions on the socioeconomic development of the country, separate regions, branches, |
FBIS3-41666_326 | State Report on the State of the Environment of the Russian Federation in 1992 1.7. Flora and Fauna and Their Present State, Use, and Protection 1.8. Fish Resources and Their Present State, Use, Protection, and Reproduction 2.1. State Nature Preserves, National Parks, State Sanctuaries, and Natural Monuments Norilskiy Nikel Russian State Nonferrous and Precious Metals Production Concern 4.1. State of the Environment in Russia's Economic Regions, Republics, Krays, and Oblasts 4.2. State of Large Regions with Unsatisfactory Ecological Conditions 4.4. Ecological Conditions in Large Cities and Industrial Centers 6.4. Network of Government Bodies Regulating and Monitoring Resource Use and Their Activities | the Russian Ministry of Science's Fund for Major National Economic Problems in 1992, with total allocations reaching 340.105 million rubles. The basic ecological research of the Russian Academy of Sciences was conducted in a series of pioneering projects, despite the suspension of financing for the academy's Biosphere and Ecology research program and the sharp cuts in basic funding. Priority continued to be assigned to basic ecological science, focusing on the resolution of environmental problems, the development of theories with regard to the main groups of problems, the analysis of scientific, technical, and technological achievements and world experience in the resolution of environmental problems and the attainment of sustainable development, and the disclosure of inadequately investigated priority fields (for example, the economics of sustainable development). Important results were achieved in many fields of basic science. The field of physico-technical sciences and mathematics, for example, produced a plan for the safe development of nuclear power engineering in Russia. A theory of the nuclear safety of fission reactors was formulated. Proposals were drawn up on the enhancement of the safety of existing and projected nuclear power plants, and groups of computer programs (or codes) were developed to analyze their safety. The possible scales of the use of nuclear power engineering in the 21st century were assessed. A project was conducted for the scientific substantiation of a new generation of steam and gas power plants operating on natural gas, with a cooling system distinguished by superior efficiency and ecological indicators. The plans and technological recommendations for ecologically clean technological units for TES [thermal electric power plant] with plasmothermal gasification were drawn up. A decision was made to build an experimental unit at the Berezovskaya GRES [state regional electric power station]-1 (Kuybyshev Electrical Equipment Plant). A unique method of protecting the earth's atmosphere from freon emissions with the aid of an SHF discharge has been proposed. The composition of the products of freon disintegration has been defined, and their safety for the ozone layer has been demonstrated. A plasmochemical microwave reactor is being designed to transform ozone-destroying freons into ecologically harmless modifications. Basic plans for waste-free technology in petroleum production and the extraction of natural bitumen with heat processing and a technological power unit for their implementation have been proposed. New generations of unique ecological procedures, methods, instruments, and systems of environmental control have been developed: -- automated analytical systems for the control of the |
FBIS3-41673_3 | Antiplague Institute Official on Disease Outbreaks | are all of these subdivisions, including the head institute, called plague institutions? Don't you deal with other dangerous diseases as well? [Yefremenko]This is probably done out of tradition. In the past, plague was the most menacing danger, and in addition, our institute developed out of a plague station established back in 1933. Today we are in fact dealing with cholera, anthrax and brucellosis. Moreover life is forcing us to join the fight against viral diseases such as influenza, hepatitis and others. It was for this purpose that the institute organized a virological laboratory. We provide what help we can to AIDS prevention centers as well. [Bykov]In other words you are widening the front of the struggle against diseases, so to speak. But not only are they not intending to retreat--on the contrary they are gathering strength. What's it worth talking about influenza if even newspaper reports about cholera or anthrax have ceased to be sensational! [Yefremenko]That's all true. But let's think about why this is happening. On one hand there are an enormous number of people today who are not getting complete, balanced nutrition, while some simply don't get enough to eat. Add to this the present commonly known woes of our public health, and the best possible conditions for growth of disease become obvious. But there is another side as well. I am referring to the atmosphere of anarchy, all-permissiveness and lack of control reigning in the country, sharply intensifying the risk. [Bykov]Can you please give an example? [Yefremenko]I can give you as many as you want! The danger of contracting anthrax has always existed. Its agent can survive for a very long time in what is known as its spore form, and all you need is to have a rainstorm or a mud flow expose a livestock burial site. Before, a sufficiently dependable barrier was maintained first by vaccinating farm animals and second by inspecting meat brought in for sale and processing. But now, not only private owners but commercial farmers are ``economizing'' on immunizations, and meat could be sold right on the street, without having undergone laboratory inspection. This was approximately the scenario of the recent infection of a couple of dozen people by anthrax in Karachayevo-Cherkesia's Adyg-Khablskiy Rayon. [Bykov]So what about cholera? As far as I know it is brought to us from far away. Imported, so to speak. [Yefremenko]Yes, chiefly from Asian countries--Pakistan, Syria, India. |
FBIS3-41673_5 | Antiplague Institute Official on Disease Outbreaks | But even here we can observe disregard for elementary requirements, shortcuts and other efforts at ``economization.'' Going abroad, our homemade businessmen, whose numbers are now impossible to count, deprive themselves of normal life, food and drink in their race for profit. Just one swallow of infected water is all it takes to bring cholera back to the homeland. By the way, despite their large numbers, Muslim pilgrims, for whom normal living conditions are created in Saudi Arabia, have never brought us any trouble. [Bykov]I heard a tragicomic story in your institute about two businessmen who had picked up cholera vibrio in foreign lands escaping from the hospital in Krasnodar after changing their identities. They didn't feel like lying around, and so they left to make more money. Do people really not understand that we are talking about a serious threat to both health and life itself? [Yefremenko]Some don't understand. Others follow the old Russian ``It'll never happen to me'' philosophy. But there are also those who are forced to risk their health and life due to circumstances beyond their control. I am referring to refugees, who have flooded our region. Poor, deprived of all basic necessities, and at the same time actively moving from place to place, they are a source of special danger. I'm not talking just about the diseases named above in this case. Can we exclude, for example, outbreaks of typhus if pediculosis has become a common thing? Unfortunately, no. [Bykov]Are you saying that what we have here is a ``risk group'' in the flesh?! And what about the relatively better-off strata and categories of the population, who among them suffers more, those living in the cities or in the countryside? Or can you put the question this way? [Yefremenko]In general, disease doesn't ask you where you come from. All the more so if you consider the density of the migration flows, the high mobility of the entire population, and the transparency of the borders. But if we consider the personal or domestic level, then a herder working within a natural plague focus risks more than an urban dweller. Though less than a careless, poorly equipped tourist. Country dwellers probably also have a greater risk of anthrax infection because they work with farm animals. However, infected meat could be sold in the city as well. Perhaps the only uncontested ``rural'' disease is brucellosis. Rural inhabitants should protect |
FBIS3-41673_6 | Antiplague Institute Official on Disease Outbreaks | time actively moving from place to place, they are a source of special danger. I'm not talking just about the diseases named above in this case. Can we exclude, for example, outbreaks of typhus if pediculosis has become a common thing? Unfortunately, no. [Bykov]Are you saying that what we have here is a ``risk group'' in the flesh?! And what about the relatively better-off strata and categories of the population, who among them suffers more, those living in the cities or in the countryside? Or can you put the question this way? [Yefremenko]In general, disease doesn't ask you where you come from. All the more so if you consider the density of the migration flows, the high mobility of the entire population, and the transparency of the borders. But if we consider the personal or domestic level, then a herder working within a natural plague focus risks more than an urban dweller. Though less than a careless, poorly equipped tourist. Country dwellers probably also have a greater risk of anthrax infection because they work with farm animals. However, infected meat could be sold in the city as well. Perhaps the only uncontested ``rural'' disease is brucellosis. Rural inhabitants should protect themselves from it especially carefully, and not treat it as something harmless. A frightening disease! [Bykov]Does your warning mean that saving the drowning is a task primarily of the drowning themselves? [Yefremenko]There's nothing wrong with being extra cautious. Or with listening to the advice of specialists. Though of course they may also label immunizations as a bad thing. But then there's no reason to be amazed that the number of cases of, let us say, diphtheria is growing. However, despite all of this, prevention of dangerous diseases, efficient detection of sources and foci, treatment of patients and prevention of epidemics are naturally national tasks. And it is no accident that we are now developing a regional program against especially dangerous infections encompassing all of the south of Russia. We are also raising the question of organizationally unifying the plague service with the sanitary-epidemiological service. But we, like everyone else, have many problems. [Bykov]Money? [Yefremenko]Not just that, although financing is one of the most painful issues. Consider what seems like a simple thing--an on-site visit by our specialists. This has become simply dangerous to life when it comes to Chechen, Ingushetia or Northern Ossetia. Nonetheless, believe me, we aren't sitting idle. |
FBIS3-41678_0 | Diphtheria and Scabies in St Petersburg | Language: Russian Article Type:CSO [Article by Svetlana Besedovskaya (NK-Press), Vladimir Zarovskiy, staff reporter] [Text] A high level of scabies and diphtheria incidence has been reported in St. Petersburg. We should state though that the chief expert of the St. Petersburg Sanitary-Epidemiological Oversight, Oleg Parkov, denied in an interview with the NK-Press Agency rumors about an epidemic allegedly breaking out in the city. At the same time, he stated that in July 1993 alone, 333 scabies patients were recorded in the city. Of these, 74 are children under the age of 14. The situation is further complicated in that there is a catastrophic shortage of drugs in the city. As for diphtheria, St. Petersburg is ahead in the number of patients and morbidity among Russian cities. In July alone, 158 cases of diphtheria were recorded; of these, eight patients have died. The first cases of diphtheria were recorded in Lithuania this year. A mother and daughter from Kaunas became ill on 2 Aug but sought a physician's help only four days later. The girl who is in a critical condition is in the resuscitation department. There are speculations that she was infected by relatives from St. Petersburg. |
FBIS3-41688_1 | Epidemics in Rostov Area | But just as suddenly, 130 persons -- big and small -- ended up on hospital cots with a diagnosis of typhoid fever. Suddenly a landslide of morbidity due to dysentery, salmonellosis, and tularemia began. In the mining city of Gukovo, for example, salmonellosis raged twice this summer. Once the source was the worker's dining room. The other time the kindergarten was the source. About 100 persons became ill with dysentery at the same time in Aksay. Cholera flew into the oblast from India on the wings of a charter commercial run along with Indian beads and leather handbags... And all this happened suddenly? Of course not. Physicians specializing in communicable diseases say with certainty that diptheria was provoked and predetermined 3-4 years ago. The current situation givens them the right to make the fully substantiated announcement that it is a result not of chance but rather the campaign developed in the mass media against vaccinations -- the sole means of guaranteeing immunity against diptheria. It may have been public opinion and intentional or not, but it was completely purposely designed to be negative toward vaccinations. People overloaded with scientific degrees but not physicians spoke in the press and on radio and stated that vaccinations, especially antidiptheria vaccinations, are toxicogenic. ``So why did you keep silent? Why did you not conduct counter-propaganda?'' I asked Oleg Dumbadze, physician specializing in communicable diseases from the oblast public health department. ``And why do we always remain silent about everything?'' he responded to my question with a question. ``Because we thought: They won't find any simpletons who will believe the madness that is being carried over the radio.'' Of course, the problem lies not only in the vaccinations, even though they are without a doubt very important. And to now make them the entire cause is too simple. The plant manufacturing the vaccines remained in Russia, but also diptheria roams the territories adjacent to it -- Ukraine and Byelarus. From there, infected people travel to us. But it is very difficult to receive the vaccine because of the break in economic ties. Another plant remained in Tbilisi. The whole problem is in the total shambles of the socialist health care system -- a system that other civilized countries, as they are now called, have never known. L.S. Sadovskaya, head of the No. 2 infectious disease department of the Rostov City Hospital, told me painfully that |
FBIS3-41690_1 | Report on Cholera Cases, Condition of Epidemiology Service | [Note: ``highly dangerous'' is the English equivalent of osoboopasnyy, which is the word from which osoboopasniki (persons working with highly dangerous diseases) is derived]. Working under her are several women who are not very young. Their sphere of activity is plague, cholera, tularemia, anthrax, and other scourges of mankind. The scourges, it is true, sit quietly in Petri dishes (more is smeared on saucers) fixed to the bottom by something yellow. After handling the dishes, you rub your hands carefully with pure alcohol, however. In critical cases, when it is necessary to process entire sacks of infected rodents, the women dress in complete antiplague suits: rubber overshoes, long gowns with ties instead of buttons, gloves, masks, and goggles. In the laboratory there is silence (most of the people are not on leave) and remarkable cleanliness. The latter is due to the efforts of the sole elderly female medical orderly. There should be six on staff, but there are is only half the physicians and laboratory workers needed (3 and 3 instead of 6 and 6). And all of them clean their own offices and valuable laboratory. At one time, the laboratory was a privileged place. Associates received a 20 percent raise their second year of work here, a 30 percent raise their third year, and a 40 percent raise in subsequent years. For this reason, it was mostly women who had to keep their relatives who became ``osoboopasniki.'' And it is just such women who work here now, even though the privileges have long since become only a memory: They only received their salaries for May and June (20,000-30,000 rubles each) in July. A Strike as a Means of Easing the Soul I saw Tamara Ivanovna for the first time in the reception room of Moscow's chief public health physician. ``This is the third time I have come,'' she complained to the secretary. ``I wait and wait and I leave. One hundred thousand indeed, it's a joke!'' It is being demanded that T.I. pay 100,000 for a minor repair in the laboratory. For both her and the chief physician, this is big money that they simply do not have. And how! Only 8 of the 55 million rubles needed for major repair of the Moscow Sanitary-Epidemiological Station has been allocated, and of the 37 million rubles needed for equipment, they only gave 1.4. T.I., feeling sorry for the chief physician |
FBIS3-41690_5 | Report on Cholera Cases, Condition of Epidemiology Service | rubbish heap located so that, from our window, I can see when and what they throw out...At first, I let it pass, but then I watched. It was as if something appeared on the table near my associates. They cut up a rotten cucumber and ate it, and they brought it to their children, if only for some vitamins. And I closed my eyes...And they invited me, ``Take some Tamara Ivanovna.'' I could not take it from them''. ``We must earn money somehow. One instance of this is enough,'' I said carefully, ``we must introduce paid services.'' ``Yes, in many sanitary-epidemiological station laboratories (let us say in those where they perform AIDS tests) it is possible to perform contract jobs and receive a total of 100,000-200,000 each.'' ``But we are the osoboopasniki. How can I take money from someone because he is suspected of having tularemia? The Moscow hospitals that have reached agreements with the Moscow Municipal Sanitary-Epidemiological Station pay 700 rubles per analysis, of which the laboratory receives 25 percent. But in the past few years, despite this ``very ridiculous price,'' the hospitals have been trying to get by without this ``luxury'' and have cut the number of patients screened to a tenth.'' ``In one quarter the laboratory earned 10,000 rubles for such analyses.'' ``And finally,'' says T.I., ``I let all this money go on ``charity'' dinners. The little girls buy bread and preserves. We have a kitchen here...'' The ``little girls'' are actually not very fortunate women who have sick husbands or parents and who sweep for themselves and others. One of them, a mother of two small children, asks T.I. for leave and collects and sells bottles. T.I. permits it even though she generally does not forgive even a minute's tardiness or early departure: ``We must not slack off, we are osoboopasniki.'' But she hardly needs to tell her small group of people. Judge for yourself. A man who just flew into Moscow yesterday turned up at the hospital with a suspicion of cholera. If the ``osoboopasniki'' give a positive answer, the operations section of the sanitary-epidemiological station (also, moreover, women who are not even between 30 and 40 years of age but increasingly of retirement age) will seek out all persons who came into contact with the patient in Moscow and all those who flew in the same aircraft with it, no matter where in the |
FBIS3-41693_0 | Cholera Panic Unjustified | Language: Russian Article Type:CSO [Article by Nikolay Gogol: ``Cholera Autumn''] [Text] The famous slogan ``Either the louse will vanquish the revolution or else the revolution will vanquish the louse'' is becoming increasingly topical. The insect is a symbol in a certain sense: It was not its tiresomeness that threatened the bolshevik revolution -- louse-borne typhus mowed down people on both sides of the barricades. Typhus is not yet among us. Just as before, however, infections are approaching and compelling us to understand that regardless of whether you are red or white, you may end up in a convulsive fever and set your hopes on the Lord God and your physician, if he is at your side and if he has the necessary drugs. Today cholera is causing serious alarm. An outbreak in Central Asia resulting in active antiepidemic actions on the part of local physicians has worried Russia. But what if it suddenly starts off here? Indeed it will start. The extremely rapid spread of the infection is being discussed. As I was informed in the Russian Federation State Committee for Sanitary-Epidemiological Oversight, there are currently 15 cholera patients and eight carriers of the infection in Russia. The disease was mainly carried in from abroad: Nine persons were infected with cholera in Pakistan, and seven tourists ``acquired'' it in Turkey together with leather consumer goods. It is hardly worth grieving over the ``iron curtain'' in this regard, but a system to protect the population from imported infections in view of snowballing black-market tourism must be devised in good time. In any case, the draft law developed by the sanitary-epidemiological committee regarding protecting Russia's territory that regulates sanitary inspection at the border should be considered without delay. Yuriy Fedorov, chief specialist of the Russian Federation State Committee for Sanitary-Epidemiological Oversight, believes that the newspaper panic regarding cholera is unjustified: There is not even any basis for announcing the quarantine that usually follows the infection of 50-60 persons. The country has a sufficiently strong public health service despite the break in ties between epidemiologists of the new independent states. The preparedness of special antiepidemic teams has been increased. The country's leadership is well informed of the epidemiological situation that has developed. The situation is under control... I remember how during the years of perestroyka, the renowned specialist A.I. Kondrusev, chief public health physician of the USSR, said, ``Politics does not worry me. |
FBIS3-41695_0 | Religious Restrictions Stall US Aid Trip | Language: Russian Article Type:CSO [Article by Vissarion Sisnev:`` ``First Aid'' Delayed: Why Your Correspondent Needs To Write a`Self-Refutation' ''] [Text] Washington -- Last week my report `` `First Aid' for Russia'' was published. In it I stated that a large group of American medical personnel would soon be dispatched to Novosibirsk to help with their practical experience, drugs, and education. One of the initiators of this noble business was Doctor Bruce Sanderson from Arkansas, the birth state of President Clinton. After learning about him, the President wrote a personal letter to the trip organizers, emphasizing that direct cooperation between his fellow countrymen and Novosibirsk City Hospital No. 25 seemed to him to be a ``splendid project that can bring much good.'' The departure was planned for the middle of August. Unfortunately, today I must refute my own information. The journey has, at best, been delayed for a long time. Doctor Sanderson sent a letter to Aleksandr Bychkov, chief physician at hospital No. 25, in which he explains what happened in the most delicate tones. Assuring his colleague that it was not easy for the group members to reach such a decision and that the arrival of American ``first aid'' in Siberia is not being canceled but only put off into the future, Doctor Sanderson reports that the refusal of a number of specialists was dictated by the fact that in their opinion, the religious bans approved by Russia's Supreme Soviet are unacceptable. It may of course be said that the physicians do not necessarily need to react so strongly to the decision of another country's parliament and that denying humanitarian aid for this reason is not very logical. As is known, however, each monastery has its own rule. Not only the physicians, but many others in the United States as well, view the Supreme Soviet's recent decision regarding limiting the activity of representatives of foreign religious organizations as a return to the epoch of violating human rights. American legislators, colleagues of our deputies, have both in groups and individually approached president Yeltsin with the urgent request that he carefully weigh everything on the scales of justice before signing the draft legislation of 14 July. Included among them are such renowned politicians as senators Richard Lugar and Jessie Helms and house members Christopher Smith, Henry Hyde, and Frank Wolf. In a separate letter, Senator Phil Graham argues his negative reaction to |
FBIS3-41695_2 | Religious Restrictions Stall US Aid Trip | violating human rights. American legislators, colleagues of our deputies, have both in groups and individually approached president Yeltsin with the urgent request that he carefully weigh everything on the scales of justice before signing the draft legislation of 14 July. Included among them are such renowned politicians as senators Richard Lugar and Jessie Helms and house members Christopher Smith, Henry Hyde, and Frank Wolf. In a separate letter, Senator Phil Graham argues his negative reaction to the Russian draft legislation with the fact that for 200 years already, Americans have considered the right to profess one religion or another one of the fundamental human rights. And Samuel Eriksson, president of the association Lawyers International, noting that his organization consults the leaders of 200 million Christians, recalls the words of Professor Robert Jackson, chief prosecutor at the Nuremburg process, regarding the fact that many ``inconveniences'' must be put up with in the name of freedom of religion, speech, and the press. INFORMATION. The U.S. legislature does not specially regulate the religious and missionary activity of foreigners within its country's territory, but it does provided for specified visa control. Since 1 October 1991, the Immigration Service has issued a special category R visa to individuals desiring to come to the United States for religious activities. It applies to clergy professionally executing their activity at KOKFESSII of which they have been members for two preceding years (of course this also applies to representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church), as well as to individuals working professionally for religious organizations in the United States and individuals working in organizations or tax-exempt affiliates as professional clergy. Such a visa is valid for 5 years. The category R visa, like any other, strictly regulates what a person receiving it may and may not do. First, each person who applies for it must be a member of a religious community belonging to a corresponding American noncommercial religious organization (there are commercial ones as well). Second, holders of a category R visa are not permitted to perform nonprofessional work for their religious communities or work for other religious communities or any other employers in addition to or instead of working for their sponsoring religious community. The purpose of these restrictions is to prevent the entry of individuals who have no relation to religious activity but who simply wish to get into the United States for one reason or another. |
FBIS3-41698_1 | Vaccine Safety Concerns, Shortage Underlie Diptheria Surge | alarmed at the increase in adults and children of another highly infectious disease whose initial symptoms are so similar to common angina and diptheria. At the end of the 1940s and beginning of the 1950s, more than 20,000 persons died in Moscow each year from diptheria. Under these conditions, the only correct solution was made -- mass mandatory vaccination of the population. By the mid-1960s, the disease's growth curve had fallen sharply, and prior to 1989 the cases of diptheria in Moscow numbered in the single digits. It was precisely then that physicians began saying that diptheria was finally conquered, and some even expressed doubt as to the feasibility of antidiptheria vaccination. Some physicians suggested that the mercury-containing preparation Merthiolate, which is used as a preservative for preparing the vaccine, is detrimental to health even though the World Health Organization has officially authorized the use of this preparation. On the one hand, an entire generation of physicians has grown up who have studied diptheria's symptoms based on institute textbooks, and on the other hand, most of the population has simply refused antidiptheria vaccinations. According to specialists' data, about 50 percent of Moscow's permanent residents are not currently vaccinated against diptheria. The result has not been slow in coming: according to data from Moscow's Main Medical Administration, 774 persons (197 of them children) have had a confirmed diagnosis of diptheria in 1992. During treatment, 17 adults and 6 children died. In the first 7 months of this year, 932 cases of the disease have been recorded, and 188 of those cases have been among children. Ninety-five adults and three children have died. It should be noted that not one of those who died had been vaccinated against diptheria. Specialists estimated that the per capita vaccination of Muscovites for 10 years will cost city authorities 56 billion rubles. Its costs about 4,000-500,000 rubles to keep such a patient in a clinic for 1 day, and diptheria patients often stay in hospitals for 90 and 120 days each. ``Until recently, the serum for treating diptheria was supplied by the Stavropolsk Biopreparations Plant,'' says Anatoliy Solovyev. ``Since 1 July of this year, supplies have been halted and we have been forced to buy drugs from abroad, which is of course more (about 30 percent) expensive.'' According to physicians' data, Moscow hospitals now only have enough serum to last until the end of the year. |
FBIS3-41703_3 | Spread of Disease by Vagrants | in the grating separating the cashier's room from the waiting room. Only at the Savelovsk train station were there almost no vagrants. At the entrance of the Pavelets train station, however, I stumbled upon a whole line of people who had lost their human appearance. As later became clear, the train station's administration had given specialists from the international association Physicians Without Borders one of its rooms. The associates of this nongovernmental organization had voluntarily taken it upon themselves to provide all medical, legal, and psychological aid within their power to Moscow's homeless. What Physicians Without Borders Can Do The experience of Physicians Without Borders may be termed unique. Working in accordance with its own program The Homeless since November 1992, they have become the only individuals in the country with the slightest bit of scientific information about those people that fate has cast to the very bottom of life. According to the association's estimates, the number of homeless persons in Moscow may exceed 150,000 (according to official data, they numbered 30,000 as of January 1992). These people who are unable to observe elementary hygiene rules (often through no fault of their own) are becoming potential carriers of diptheria, cholera, typhus, tuberculosis, and other extremely dangerous diseases. Social pariahs despised by everyone, they prefer to not seek help at state medical institutions. And the services of private physicians are, as is well known, beyond the means of even citizens with residence permits. After having worked at the Kursk and Pavelets train stations for several months, the association specialists accumulated statistical data about the most characteristic ailments for vagrants. Half of them suffer from wounds and trophic ulcers, and a third (all in all) suffer from tuberculosis and pneumonia. One hundred percent are infested with lice! A total of 2,500 homeless persons were examined. `` `Ambulance' physicians generally refuse to come for vagrants because the subsequent disinfection of their ambulance takes several hours,'' says Aleksey Golikov, associate of the association. ``We therefore take the most seriously ill to hospitals in our own two minibuses.'' By agreements reached with six hospitals, Physicians Without Borders send those under their care there for treatment. In exchange for the inconveniences, they supply medical personnel with scarce drugs. After having been treated, the vagrants are returned to the train stations -- where else? There they live for years; they collect empty bottles, panhandle, and engage in |
FBIS3-41706_0 | Epidemiology Committee Gives Disease Statistics for 1993 | Language: Russian Article Type:CSO [Article: ``When it Rains, it Pours''] [Text] The epidemiological situation in Russia is unfavorable--such is the conclusion of the RF State Committee for Sanitary-Epidemiological Oversight, which analyzed reports from public health services of all of the country's regions over the past 9 months. In this connection Yelena Kotova, chief of the state committee's epidemiological department communicated the following: TYPHOID FEVER. Morbidity increased by 132 percent in comparison with the same period of last year. The two largest outbreaks were in Dagestan (the Caspian region) and Volgodonsk (the South of Russia). Six hundred twenty-one persons suffered. The cause-- accidents involving water supply networks. DYSENTERY. Morbidity increased by 20 percent. Twenty-five outbreaks were noted, primarily in Astrakhan and Leningrad oblasts, Kalmykia, Khanisia, Komi and Northern Ossetia. Two thousand four hundred persons suffered. DIPHTHERIA. Morbidity is assuming a serious clinical epidemic nature. Just since the beginning of the year 5,888 persons have suffered this illness in Russia, 129 of whom have died. MEASLES AND WHOOPING COUGH. Morbidity increased by 200 percent and 29 percent respectively. CHOLERA. Twenty-one patients and eight carriers have been registered. Of them, 16 patients and five carriers ``imported'' this disease from India and Pakistan. |
FBIS3-41707_0 | Recent Disease Outbreaks Detailed | Language: Russian Article Type:CSO [Article based on materials from the Postfactum Agency: ``A Wave of Infections Rolls Deep Into Russia''] [Text] Anthrax cases were registered in Iskitim, Novosibirsk Oblast, according to Vladimir Akulov, a correspondent of the Postfactum Agency and director of the oblast center for sanitary- epidemiological oversight. Anthrax was transmitted to butchers and cooks of the dining hall of the local construction administration No 28. The meat had been purchased in Altay, and it was accompanied by a certificate issued by the local center for sanitary-epidemiological oversight. Four patients are now in the infection hospital. The necessary steps were taken to keep this disease from spreading through the oblast. A diphtheria epidemic has begun in Vladivostok. In the last few days 85 cases of disease were registered. The average age of the patients is 25-30 years. An extraordinary epidemiological commission was established in the city administration to eliminate the sources of disease. According to a report from the Tomsk newspaper KRASNOYE ZNAMYA 29 diphtheria cases were revealed in Tomsk since the beginning of the year, two of them fatal. In the meantime only five diphtheria cases were registered in the past 20 years. The administration head of Tomsk Oblast published a resolution on fighting diphtheria. According to the resolution whenever applicants are accepted for secondary special educational institutions and VUZes, they must present an immunization document. All children in schools, boarding schools and nurseries are to be immunized this quarter. Testing for pathogenic bacteria at industrial enterprises will be one of the diphtheria control measures. The chief physician of the sanitary-epidemiological station has been granted the right not to issue trade permits without presentation of the necessary medical documents. The Tomsk city epidemiological station will be given 5 million rubles to acquire the necessary medical resources. An outbreak of epidemic hepatitis was noted in schools of Kamensk (Rostov Oblast). Several students have been hospitalized. Several schools and boarding schools were closed in order to prevent the spread of hepatitis. Medical workers believe that overcrowding in the schools, the poor diet of the students and unsatisfactory public health and hygienic conditions were the causes of illness. Case of food poisoning have become more frequent in Novokuznetsk. Forty-five poisoning cases caused by staphylococcus were registered in the city. It was revealed that most poisoning cases were associated with consumption of poor quality sour cream. Other cases of mass intestinal infections |
FBIS3-41710_1 | Hepatitis in Russia | came about. The mother of an 11-year-old boy, her eyes sunken from sleepless nights no longer able to shed tears, explained: ``The boy fell ill after a routine immunization. Botkin's disease was the diagnosis. He recovered, but he still feels poorly sometimes.'' Now the sentence has been handed down--a year and a half to live, nothing can be done. The doctors are powerless. Now that the disease has come into its own. But could anything have been done sooner? Yes. That's what this article is about. Viral hepatitis is a disease that occurs extensively throughout the entire world. Up to 250,000 cases are registered annually in our country. These are only the acute and obvious cases of infection, while in fact it is believed that this figure is understated by a factor of 10! Perhaps only acute respiratory diseases afflict people more often. And as for the number of fatalities and complications, there are no equals to this infection. Medical workers of the developed countries, in which the fight against viral hepatitis has been raised to the rank of a state program, came to understand this long ago. Relying on laboratory tests, medical workers can distinguish hepatitis today into type A (the dirty hands disease) and type B (so-called serum hepatitis). Five other variants are not recognized by Russian statistics, and they are classified by a process of elimination as a mixed group--neither A nor B. In Russia, hepatitis A is encountered more often than the other types, making up 60-70 percent of all hepatitis cases in adults and 70-80 percent in children. As with any other intestinal infection, hepatitis A is typified by seasonal occurrence. And so it is now, in fall, that epidemiologists are noting an increase in morbidity, especially among children attending nursery school and schoolchildren. Many probably recall that gamma-globulin immunizations used to be given against jaundice in times of mass outbreaks. Today, this is hardly possible--it's expensive, and the preparation is not available in sufficient quantity. How do we protect ourselves? The advice is simple--wash your hands more frequently, don't eat unwashed food, don't drink water from unfamiliar sources, and it would be better to boil all drinking water. And if you happen to make contact with a person who has the disease, be on guard for 5 weeks. Medical workers advise caution to tourists to developing countries of Asia and Africa. This infection is |
FBIS3-41710_9 | Hepatitis in Russia | they are powerless if material support to the use of high quality blood tests is insufficient. Are there really no other ways of stopping hepatitis B and C besides blood tests? In 30 years of scientific research in this field, some things have already been accomplished. Creation of a specific vaccine against hepatitis B is the greatest accomplishment. When scientists reported this, the press wrote triumphantly that the first vaccine against cancer had been developed. Hepatitis B vaccinations have been available for over 12 years already, during which time hundreds of millions of the planet's inhabitants have been immunized. It has been demonstrated that the vaccination course can provide defense against the virus for 7 or more years. Unfortunately you can't get immunized anywhere in Russia today, either free of charge or for money. The domestically made preparation has not yet been perfected for practical use. Foreign preparations are not being purchased, although Western firms have already been producing second-generation vaccine that is absolutely safe and effective for a long time. Medical workers and newborn infants from mothers who are carriers of the virus are mandatorily immunized in most developed countries. But even where the epidemiological situation is recognized to be unfavorable (there are several such regions in Russia), hepatitis B vaccine is included on the calendar of children's immunizations. Responding to a proposal by the World Health Organization, a number of African countries and Italy have begun implementing a program of expanded immunization of the population. It is disappointing to learn of such accomplishments that are inaccessible to Russia. This is why Moscow's scientists and medical workers have joined together to establish the Hepatitis Control Assistance Fund--a public organization bringing together all who desire to join in the struggle using the resources of modern accomplishments in the epidemiology, prevention, diagnosis and treatment of viral diseases of the liver. The gap today between what has been accomplished through world progress in the area of hepatitis and what Russian practical health has available to it today is rather large. The fund has developed the ``Anti-hepatitis'' program, and we invite all who wish to do so to work with us to carry it out. The fund already has a possibility for testing donated blood in the way it is done in America and Europe. We also have hepatitis B vaccine. In Moscow we can be reached by telephone at 490-1414 and 365-8998. |
FBIS3-41714_1 | Infectious Diseases, Mushroom Poisonings | for a long time, has made its appearance. Eighty-seven persons were hospitalized for it in Volgodonsk, Rostov Oblast. Specialists from the State Committee for Sanitary-Epidemiological Oversight limited their information to the indicated cases. But the geography of the infection and the list of patients are more extensive. We possess data indicating that local medical workers in Astrakhan and Barnaul discovered anthrax agents in food products. Some people have already contracted the disease. The situation with this infection recalls especially clearly the ``Solovyev effect'' with which we began our discussion--a doctor's behavior in extreme circumstances. A peasant family in the Astrakhan town of Dianovka was forced to slaughter a sick calf. The local veterinarian could be diagnosed with a lack of knowledge or conscience, but he deemed the meet to be fit for consumption. A few days later those who slaughtered the animal and sold its meat heard of their unconditional diagnosis--anthrax. A quarantine was announced in Dianovka. And in another town as well--Tundrikha, Altay Kray. Here also they slaughtered a sick animal and sold the meat uninspected. Efforts are being made to save the sick. Cattle, sheep and horses are undergoing mass vaccination. The financially strapped sanitary-epidemiological oversight agency contained the epidemic of the terrible disease. But in this case millions of rubles were spent on medicines, vaccinations of animals, and disinfection. The term ``negligence'' is often applied to trading in uninspected infected meat. But does that tell the whole story? Do we say anything about the social causes that encourage some to sell and others to buy meat that is now as precious as gold? It's probably a little cheaper when it doesn't bear a seal of inspection. Why not risk your health if you didn't have to buy it, and you got it free? When misfortune comes to our door, contrary to popular wisdom we lock it, and rather tightly. But aren't we acting a little too late? After all many things can and must be foreseen. The same goes for imported infections. Given the present openness of borders, and the scale of goods traffic, we should have adopted the corresponding law protecting Russian Federation territory from importation of diseases by people, animals and plants long ago (most other countries have such laws). But in our country this law just now being written in response to a government decree, which was itself adopted in May, just before lightning |
FBIS3-41715_3 | Infectious Diseases in Juvenile Institutions | and even hundreds of kilometers, without money or clothing. They travel chiefly in trains, on baggage shelves or in vestibules. As they travel their long road, people give them food and money. But when all of this ends, they begin to steal. In train stations the guests to the capital come together into juvenile gangs, which then disrobe and rob other adolescents, and sometimes even adults, if they are drunk. Fourteen-year-old Sasha rode in from the Urals. A man at the train station asked him: ``Do you want to earn some money? You can sell beer.'' And so a new ``station'' life begins. Money, lots of it. The children steal from passers-by and divide the loot among themselves. And when there's extra money, you can drink, and you can spend some time with the young girls in the station--there are many of them here, and they're cheap. Station girls are 14-16 years old for the most part, but recently 12-year-olds are encountered more often as well. The station life of an adolescent doesn't last long--the police catch the children and send them to the detention and distribution center. Here they are bathed, deloused, fed and sent for treatment. In 6 months the center housed 2,812 persons; 1,582 of these children were returned to their parents. To those who hadn't had their parental rights taken away from them. To those who could be located. In recent months many children have been arriving from zones of conflict. It is becoming increasingly more difficult to send them back home. Inquiries take a long time, and often without success. The center's associates work on the basis of personal contacts--after all, prior to the USSR's disintegration they had worked in this system for several years, and so old ties and acquaintances help to solve the problems. The question is, how much longer will this system work? In the Baltic states, in Georgia and in Chechen, there is a unique attitude toward children from the detention center. An Estonian or Georgian child will be picked up quickly, while a Russian one is not, because, they say, its parents are part of an occupying force. The children go around here in pairs. To lunch, and for exercise, under the escort of police. As I looked at these pairs under convoy, I experienced pain and shame. Days go by, but the pain and the shame do not pass. |
FBIS3-41723_0 | Tuberculosis Widespread in Yakutia | Language: Russian Article Type:CSO [Article by correspondent Vladimir Androsenko: ``Forgotten Diseases Are Returning With Poverty''] [Text] Cases of people dying from long-forgotten tubercular meningitis were noted in Yakutia in 1992. Other forms of diseases that had fallen into oblivion have grown in frequency as well--tuberculosis of bones, joints and lymph nodes, while the overall infection rate of the population by Koch's tubercular bacillus is reaching a once unprecedented value--70-80 percent. The disease is selective: It strikes mainly the poor. Its widespread occurrence in the North is explained by the fact that the overwhelming part of the local population has begun eating much more poorly. Weakened by low-calorie food and avitaminosis, the body is unable to resist infection. |
FBIS3-41725_7 | Authorities Seek Cause of Mass HIV Infection of Rostov Children | infection several degrees in who knows what direction fell into the lap of the procuracy. Until quite recently there were eight infected adults in Rostov Oblast. One man, and the rest women. The husband of one of the women divorced her after the diagnosis, while another three women became pregnant (after the diagnosis!) and gave birth, leaving their husbands healthy in this case. And it became clear just recently that there should be many more infected adults in Rostov. Following the death of Gennadi Ilchenko, the director of the oblast's main medical school, it was revealed that he had been ill with AIDS since 1985. While he was alive he was known as a person who could use his official position to his advantage. As it now turns out, not only materially but even physically. After the cause of his death was announced, both male and female students, past and present, and even instructors at the school, who had managed to have relations with the deceased director, appeared for testing at the oblast AIDS centers. The scandal is growing in Rostov's medical circles. However, it turns out that what was a secret in Rostov was known for a long time in Moscow. Ilchenko had been on record at the hospital on Sokolinaya Hill, presently the Russian Scientific and Teaching Center for AIDS, since 1987. It was then, and is now, under the command of Vadim Pokrovskiy, who (no one in Rostov doubts this) set up treatment for Ilchenko without publicity. Unauthorized people shouldn't know about an AIDS diagnosis, but even the chief physician didn't know about this in the oblast AIDS center, which takes care of Rostov Oblast. Two persons infected by Ilchenko have been revealed in Rostov thus far. But few doubt that this is only the beginning. People infected by the chief of the medical school may be at any of the oblast's therapeutic institutions. Including at blood transfusion stations, and in children's hospitals. The procuracy is preparing to investigate a new version of the possible mass infections--by way of infected medical workers. As for what conclusions will be reached by the investigation, which has gotten into a matter that is not in its typical line of work, time will tell. But until medicine opts to investigate all versions at a serious scientific level, not one of us can be assured that new hospital infections won't break out. |
FBIS3-41726_0 | Water Quality Blamed for Sixteen Disease Outbreaks | Language: Russian Article Type:CSO [Article by Lidiya Ivchenko: ``The Water Is Becoming Dangerous''] [Text] There was a time when water from the tap could be drunk in peace, even unboiled. Unfortunately today this is only an apparent state of well-being: Last year 16 outbreaks of infections from which almost 2,500 persons suffered were registered in Russia at the fault of water supply systems. What we are talking about in this case is only the mass outbreaks, in which the number of victims is in the tens and hundreds; this is not including the isolated cases, or ones which may be classified as causing minor unpleasantness, like water in Moscow in spring. However, water recently flowed from Moscow's taps with the obvious odor of manure. ``This phenomenon has already become a tradition,'' said A. Rogovets, chief specialist on water supply problems of the State Committee for Sanitary-Epidemiological Oversight. ``The moment spring begins, you have manure in the water sources.... The farms violate the procedures of applying organic fertilizers to fields: Rather than trucking them in in fall, before the snow falls, they do so in winter, applying them over the snow. The thaw begins, and everything flows into the water basin, rather than penetrating into the soil.'' In order for the quality of drinking water to be high, the source itself must first correspond to sanitary requirements. But when it comes to our water basins, the question is, what isn't in them--toxic chemical compounds, heavy metal salts, phenols, viruses, agents of parasitic diseases.... Today one out of every eight samples of tap water is unsatisfactory with respect to bacteriological indicators, while one out of every five is unsatisfactory in its chemical indicators, due to incomplete treatment that is unable to cope with massive contamination of sources. Of the water pipelines taking water from open-air water basins in the country, 44.4 percent do not have the full complement of treatment facilities, while in Arkhangelsk Oblast, Karelia and the Volga region a third of the water supply facilities supply water without decontamination. On the whole, around half of Russia's population is forced to use drinking water that fails the hygienic requirements in relation to a number of indicators. And the water supply nets are so worn that the number of accidents reaches 75,000 per year. Why should we be amazed if infections rise here and there, and the sanitary-epidemiological service has to quench |
FBIS3-41730_2 | Interview With Russian Epidemiology Official Shestopalov | general and the sanitary-epidemiological service in particular do not have enough resources for normal preventive work: Because of insufficient and late financing we are unable to carry out all of the necessary measures fully--medical checkups, analyses, disinfection, vaccination etc. But speaking in general, political, economic and social crises inevitably lead to complication of the epidemic situation in any society undergoing periods of change, and what we observe in our country today confirms this. [Kudinova]That's true, and if we recall history, beginning with the ``childhood of mankind,'' or the Age of Antiquity, epidemics, or ``mory'' as they were referred to in the distant past, always accompanied upheavals in a state. They were viewed in cultures of different peoples and centuries in the same way--as the vengeance and punishment of the gods, as ``divine punishment.'' Naturally the mechanisms of monitoring and curtailing the spread of infection can no longer work well in connection with economic devastation, but could it also be that the defense mechanisms of the human body also break down? After all, pathogenic viruses and microbes exist in stable periods of history as well, but they don't always evoke massive epidemic disease. [Shestopalov]If we're talking about the laws by which epidemics arise, we should recall the well known physiologist Selye, who justified the theory of stress. Stress is the body's natural defense reaction to an external effect, as a rule a response to a situation differing from normal. Stress mobilizes the body's defensive forces. But stress has its antipode as well--distress. This is excessive, over-the-line stress, which lasts abnormally long and which ultimately results in inhibition of defensive forces. The economic and political instability of recent years, the lack of social protections for the population, the decrease in standard of living, local wars and conflicts in different places in our country, uncertainty in tomorrow--aren't these enough reasons for distress? The immunity of the people is suppressed, there is no barrier to diseases, and consequently the individual easily catches ailments to which he is exposed, and infections he encounters. [Kudinova]Distress is still present, and obviously it is threatening us with epidemics of even greater scale, since after all, judging from your statistics, morbidity is growing. What are sanitary-epidemiological oversight services doing to keep the situation from getting out of control? [Shestopalov]In order to carry out preventive work to the fullest, we are trying to preserve the structure and function of our |
FBIS3-41730_4 | Interview With Russian Epidemiology Official Shestopalov | services to the maximum, although this is requiring colossal effort: There is nothing with which to pay for gasoline, electric power and building rent, and there is not enough money to acquire instruments, reagents, nutrient media and equipment. We appealed to the government, and it supported us: Local bodies of government were asked to allocate resources as a separate item in support of regional and local or municipal programs for supporting sanitary and epidemiological well-being. These programs focus on different things: In some areas, treatment of drinking water, in others, inspection of food products, in still others, massive preventive vaccination, and so on. We also received permission to use, for the needs of our service, from 50 to 100 percent of fines we impose on officials and legal entities guilty of violating public health and epidemiological regulations. Moreover despite the fact that this is an extremely complex period, and perhaps the not most suitable one, we are nonetheless reorganizing our service in order to make it more responsive to the needs of society. We are establishing special interregional centers--toxicological, chemical and microbiological, which will make it possible to concentrate our modest possibilities and fulfill a large volume of analyses and measurements at a higher level of quality. Had it not been for all of these measures, the epidemic situation in the country would have been worse. Unfortunately, we are practically unable to influence diseases categorized as social diseases--tuberculosis, pediculosis, venereal. As we know, they increase in incidence unavoidably in territories where the economic and social situation is unstable, where ``morality is on the decline.'' As an example the statistics on gonorrhea--a disease that is suffered as a rule by people in their time of development and youth--are only the tip of the iceberg: Many often treat themselves with home remedies, without seeing a doctor, causing the ailment to assume its chronic form and dooming themselves and others to infertility. I can't agree with what is happening today in our country in the area of ``sex education.'' My mind rebels at calling this a civilized development. [Kudinova]What can each person do for him or herself to reduce the risk of catching infectious diseases? [Shestopalov]Save for observing the elementary rules of personal hygiene, there is nothing that I can propose. Wash your hands before eating and after going to the bathroom, don't use perishable food products after their shelf life has expired, |
FBIS3-41730_5 | Interview With Russian Epidemiology Official Shestopalov | measurements at a higher level of quality. Had it not been for all of these measures, the epidemic situation in the country would have been worse. Unfortunately, we are practically unable to influence diseases categorized as social diseases--tuberculosis, pediculosis, venereal. As we know, they increase in incidence unavoidably in territories where the economic and social situation is unstable, where ``morality is on the decline.'' As an example the statistics on gonorrhea--a disease that is suffered as a rule by people in their time of development and youth--are only the tip of the iceberg: Many often treat themselves with home remedies, without seeing a doctor, causing the ailment to assume its chronic form and dooming themselves and others to infertility. I can't agree with what is happening today in our country in the area of ``sex education.'' My mind rebels at calling this a civilized development. [Kudinova]What can each person do for him or herself to reduce the risk of catching infectious diseases? [Shestopalov]Save for observing the elementary rules of personal hygiene, there is nothing that I can propose. Wash your hands before eating and after going to the bathroom, don't use perishable food products after their shelf life has expired, don't buy food products, especially meat, from people you don't know. When you buy meat (and other food products as well), do so only after making sure that it had passed veterinary inspection. And of course, diphtheria immunizations are a doubtless requirement. This dangerous infection will remain prominent for a sufficiently longer time. The sole effective defense against it is immunization. Every immunization is mandatorily preceded by an examination by a doctor, it is carried out only with a disposable syringe, and the vaccine satisfies the standards of the World Health Organization fully, such that immunization is absolutely safe to life. Even if a person falls ill due to particular features of his body, he will not die of diphtheria, and he will not suffer complications. Nor should immunizations against tick-borne encephalitis be refused in regions where this is necessary, and at the slightest suspicion of a tick bite a doctor should be seen at once. [Kudinova]Nikolay Vladimirovich, you noted that urban residents suffer more from infectious diseases. There is no doubt that where population density is higher, the frequency of contacts is greater and it is much easier to get infected. But let's clarify this. The medical service has |
FBIS3-41731_0 | Interview With RF Chief Epidemiologist Fedorov | Language: Russian Article Type:CSO [Interview with Yu. Fedorov, chief specialist, Russian Federation State Committee for Sanitary-Epidemiological Oversight, by Valeriya Leina; place and date of interview not given:`` Will We Overtake the War Year of 1918 in Cholera and Typhus?''] [Text] During the turbulent days of devastating civil war, starving Russia was overwhelmed by raging epidemics of diphtheria, typhus and cholera. The famous ``Uncle Gilyay''--Gilyarovskiy, who was sent on assignment to the places of devastation, wrote that people were dying like flies from cholera. Today, things are bad in the country not only in regard to politics and the economy. The number of infectious diseases has risen. And among them, once again we have cholera, diphtheria and typhoid fever. [Leina]Are we threatened by mass epidemics? [Fedorov] We're not threatened by a repeat of 1918. But still, the situation is rather serious. We have registered 62 infectious diseases. Among intestinal forms, cholera is the most frightening. This disease is distinguished by an explosive course: If it is not bridled in time, the danger of an epidemic is great. In the past, cholera was a classical disease, but later on, in view of causes unknown to us, the agent changed. Cholera under the name of El Tor (Ogava) penetrated into our country with shoppers from countries in which the standard of living and, consequently, public health norms are very low. For example five tourists from Orekhovo-Zuyevo who visited Turkey fell ill. A total of 21 patients and eight virus carriers were registered. Four of them were discovered in Moscow--a person without a permanent place of residence, a nurse, and two foreign subjects--from Syria and Lebanon. With the exception of one fatality in Dagestan, all of them lived through it and, for practical purposes, recovered. Despite the fact that it is difficult to monitor the disease because of the influx of refugees from southern republics (Tajikistan, Azerbaijan and Georgia), where the situation is many times more stressful, cholera has been fully contained in Russia. The number of typhoid fever cases has risen. Last year there were 267 of them, while this year there were 621. As a rule, cases of infection are associated with contamination of drinking water. For example in the city of Volgodonsk, Rostov Oblast sewage made its way into old leaky water supply pipes, as a result of which 217 persons fell ill. Dysentery and salmonellosis are a real calamity. Fifty-four |
FBIS3-41731_2 | Interview With RF Chief Epidemiologist Fedorov | very low. For example five tourists from Orekhovo-Zuyevo who visited Turkey fell ill. A total of 21 patients and eight virus carriers were registered. Four of them were discovered in Moscow--a person without a permanent place of residence, a nurse, and two foreign subjects--from Syria and Lebanon. With the exception of one fatality in Dagestan, all of them lived through it and, for practical purposes, recovered. Despite the fact that it is difficult to monitor the disease because of the influx of refugees from southern republics (Tajikistan, Azerbaijan and Georgia), where the situation is many times more stressful, cholera has been fully contained in Russia. The number of typhoid fever cases has risen. Last year there were 267 of them, while this year there were 621. As a rule, cases of infection are associated with contamination of drinking water. For example in the city of Volgodonsk, Rostov Oblast sewage made its way into old leaky water supply pipes, as a result of which 217 persons fell ill. Dysentery and salmonellosis are a real calamity. Fifty-four outbreaks were registered in recent months, and 5,200 persons have succumbed. The diphtheria situation is unfavorable. The number of patients has neared 6,000. Pediculosis and scabies chiefly strike citizens without a permanent place of residence. Finally, typhus, anthrax, rabies and some other infections occur in very small quantities. [Leina]Are medicines available? [Fedorov]Yes, for example, cholera is stopped by timely administration of chemically pure salt solutions. Its treatment is rather inexpensive, while on the other hand preventive examination of people who come in contact with patients costs money. Immunizations are the sole means against infections spread by airborne droplets, particularly diphtheria. Despite the rumors the quality of our vaccine is very high, which is confirmed by experts of the World Health Organization. [Leina]What preventive measures and sanctions are the sanitary-epidemiological services employing? [Fedorov]Oversight of water supply and sewage facilities and vacation places has been intensified. Officials who violate public health norms are fined up to 3 months' wages. A fine of up to 100 minimum wages has been established for selling food products without a license. Unfortunately it is hard to control private trade--flea markets and second-hand markets. Poisoning by food products from state trade enterprises has grown in frequency as well. In these cases the sanitary-epidemiological service files a so-called regressive suit against the culprit, requiring him to compensate for the economic damages he inflicted. |
FBIS3-41733_1 | Surge in Rodent-Borne Diseases | RABOCHIY introduction] [Text]A dramatic rise in number of rodent-borne diseases has been noted in the oblast. According to data of the Oblast Sanitary and Epidemiological Oversight Center, 148 cases of pseudotuberculosis (including 4 outbreaks in children's preschool institutions) and 56 cases of intestinal yersiniosis in the first 6 months of this year. Let us note, for the sake of comparison, that 8 and 15 cases of these diseases, respectively, had been reported for the same period last year. Fresh vegetables that stored for some time at rat-infested warehouses of trade bases and stores are increasingly often the source of infection. As we know, rodents are also involved in the spread of tick-borne encephalitis. Fortunately, there is still no tularemia, God forbid, or plague, yet these most dangerous diseases are also transmitted by rats and mice. Wherein lies the cause of the unprecedented surge in morbidity? Specialists believe that it is not a matter of natural growth of the rodent population (in this sense, the situation is quite usual this year), it is simply that people have virtually stopped controlling this long-tailed filth. Deratization, i.e., extermination of rodents, has been always the concern of disinfection and prevention stations and departments, which are paid for their work on a contractual basis. At present, many enterprises have more important things to think about than rats, and for this reason all the necessary conditions for reproduction and improved diet are provided for these animals. And the disinfection and prevention service is falling apart before our eyes, people are quitting because of the low wages, there are not enough modern poisons, transportation, needed materials and bait. Payment for rodent extermination work from the local budget is the logical solution for this situation. After all, the Moscow city council adopted a decision that provides for comprehensive, regularly scheduled deratization (rats must be exterminated everywhere, in the residential sector, developed areas, and who is to pay the expense?). The authorities in the capital have allocated considerable budgetary funds, and have made it incumbent on all enterprises, regardless of forms of ownership, to conclude contracts with disinfection-prevention stations; they have implemented a number of measures to furnish this service with everything it needs, as well as for technical-engineering protection against rodents. Moscow was the first to come to its senses. But the people of the Urals are maintaining an aloof calmness: they are not worried, so be it.... |
FBIS3-41735_0 | Surge in Pediculosis Cases | Language: Russian Article Type:CSO [Article by Svetlana Tutorskaya, IZVESTIYA correspondent: ``Ministry of Health Experts Report Hundreds of Thousands of Pediculosis Cases''] [Text]Last year, there were 337,333 officially recorded cases of human louse infestation, which is what we diffidently call pediculosis. Specialists equate those who have lice with carriers of infection. Because no one knows the moment and hour that, for example, an epidemic of dreaded, in the memory of the older generation, typhus will spread together with these lice. Typhus strikes the heart and central nervous system, and there were in the past quite a few cases of patient death. Experts of the Russian Ministry of Health emphasize in particular that it is very difficult to detect everyone with pediculosis. While 136,222 people were recorded in the first 5 months of 1993 (which is slightly less than last year on a monthly basis), this is no reason to rejoice:in what places are adults and children the focus of attention in this respect? Obviously, in hospitals, children's institutions, hostels and summer camps. But many hospitals are shut down in the summer for repairs. Students have gone home. And the number of camps where children can improve their health is rapidly declining.... So that this figure of 136,000 plus people could be considered the result of screening a sample. Mikhail Narkevich, Russian Ministry of Health expert, believes that ``The cause does not lie only in dirt itself. In the course of civilian unrest, major migrations and roaming, not only the lifestyle but also the emotional status of people changes. Stress, apathy, nervousness and lack of self-confidence pave the way for infections in general. And for pediculosis too. The present ``surge'' started before the cost of soap and of washing at a bath house rose. And the insects have been found in many apartments with all the amenities, with rows of shampoos and hot water. Pharmacies are being supplied very poorly with louse-control agents.'' There is another real threat that has arisen in the last few days, cholera in Tadjikistan. It arrived there from Pakistan, with tourists. With the present increase in migration and enormous flux of refugees, there is the possibility of cholera ``arriving'' in Russian cities too. It is transmitted through dirty water, insufficiently pure food and dirty hands. The saddest thing of all is that, in general, the means of salvation are simple. As for pedi..., that is to say, |
FBIS3-41740_6 | Condition of Epidemiology Service Interview With Epidemiology Committee Chairman Belyayev | us to speak about the cost of drinking water or about the fact that it is a product. The GOST ``Drinking Water'' requires studies of water for 28 ingredients. The World Health Organization proposed that water be studied for 50 ingredients back in 1984, and the list is now nearly up to 100. So you judge our level. Our out-of-date water purification process makes it impossible to test for either 50 or 100 ingredients. And out-of-dateness creates the appearance of well-being. Together with scientists, we are revising the GOST for water. I am afraid that 70 percent of our drinking water will turn out to be of poor quality. [Lukyanova] Is there any possibility of providing Russians with normal drinking water? [Belyayev] In the distant future. It will involve replacing the entire water treatment system and refraining from using chlorine. Civilized countries have long stopped using it. Chlorine compounds form corrosive and toxic substances in the body. Abroad, ozone purification of water is a stage that has already been passed, and we have not yet begun using the method in most cities. Other water purification and disinfection methods have already been discovered and are being used, and we must switch over to them. And the quickest way is that of building local units for additional water treatment, as is being done throughout the entire world. They may be designed for the home, hospital, children's settlement, or even apartment. The units are expensive but effective. A second way is to sell drinking water in containers as is done everywhere. And it must be decided quickly. The water supplied to the public in Moscow meets the GOST for drinking water. [Lukyanova]Your committee developed a document regarding compensation for harm inflicted to human health in connection with environmental pollution. What is the fate of this document? [Belyayev]It is now being examined in Russia's state legal administration. And I fear that the legal experts are trimming it it so that all that will remain is a shell with no teeth. In saying this, I am not implying any criticism of the legal experts. Very weighty arguments are necessary to prove the causes of such harm in court. This type of compensation is very unusual for our government. They have been ``tossing the document around'' for half a year already; however, we are standing up for the public's interests. [Lukyanova]I know that the committee has |
FBIS3-41740_8 | Condition of Epidemiology Service Interview With Epidemiology Committee Chairman Belyayev | created a register of potentially hazardous chemical and biological materials. What is the purpose of this work? [Belyayev]Increasingly newer compositions, alloys, and chemicals are being used. Before they are used to manufacture, let us say, children's toys, we must know everything about these materials from the standpoint of adherence to public health standards and prevention of harmful health consequences. Construction materials that have not passed health tests and that have not been approved by the sanitary and epidemiological service have, for example, been used in finishing the interior of buildings. And it later became clear that they are harmful to health because they give off toxic materials. A register is needed to eliminate this type of ignorance. It is a check for the toxicity of materials used in the national economy and everyday life. [Lukyanova]While becoming familiar with your committee's work, I was surprised: You are continuing to actively set up antiplague institutions. I can't bear to find out that plague is again with us. But what about typhus and cholera? [Belyayev]Plague has not been recorded among Russia's population for many years. Natural foci of the infection have recently been activated, however. That is, there has been an increase in the number of cases of rodents and fleas excreting plague microbe. Each year, the institutions of the antiplague system exterminate rodents in order to reduce their number. The members of the public who live within the territories of natural foci, as well as geologists and shepards, are being inoculated. Antiplague institutions are maintaining constant oversight of this menacing infection and developing new diagnostic preparations. Specialists at antiplague institutions are now taking preventive measures against especially dangerous infections. As far as cholera is concerned, only isolated cases of its being brought in from India and other countries have been recorded in Russia in the past 3 years. Poor-quality sewage treatment and contamination of water reservoirs by sewage are creating a real threat of cholera in several places, however. The deterioration of the socio-economic situation in the country, increase in detergent and disinfectant prices, and lack of baths have all led to a significant increase in scabies and pediculosis. The high louse infestation of the population constitutes a potential threat of the occurrence of nearly forgotten typhus. [Lukyanova]Fresh vegetables have appeared, and with them a panic over nitrates. What should we do -- eat them or just feast our eyes on them? |
FBIS3-41745_0 | Nine Anthrax cases in Astrakhan | Language: Russian Article Type:CSO [Article by Arkadiy Semenyaka, under the title: Diagnosis - Anthrax] [Text] Ten residents of the Volodar region have entered the Astrakhan Oblast Infectious Disease Hospital. The diagnosis - anthrax. In the opinion of local specialists, the meat of a diseased animal was the source of the illness. Emergency prophylactic measures are being taken in the region. These should naturally cut off the spread of the disease. But, after all, it has long been known that our health depends on us ourselves. And under the table goods are not the best acquisition on the market. |
FBIS3-41746_1 | Oncology Center Closes | action. It is difficult to check this assertion; therefore, let us take the eminent Academician at his word. And although there has been no sensation, you will understand that it made sense to continue the conversation... It is said that AIDS is the plague of the twentieth century. In Russia 500 people have acquired this plague. But in 1990, 700 thousand people in the USSR fell ill with cancer. We now have 500 thousand new cancer patients annually in Russia alone. Five hundred and 500 thousand. But the majority, to please various currents of opinion, are more concerned with the problem of AIDS. Today 42-43 per cent of our patients recover. This is the per cent of recovery of the colored population of the US. It is higher among the white population - half of the oncological patients. It is clear why: the conditions exist for early diagnosis, there is a higher level of medical assistance rendered. So that deliverance from the terrible disease is not only a scientific, medical problem, but a social problem as well. How does it occur, and what are the causes... According to forecasts, at the beginning of the next century every third person will become ill with cancer in the course of his life. Our current social characteristics will have their effect in 10-15 years. It is known that incorrect nutrition is the cause in 35 per cent of cases of the occurrence of malignant tumors, and smoking in 30 per cent. Fifteen after the second world war, the number of cases of cancer of the stomach increased sharply - the deprivations of the war years were taking their toll. Now these tumors, as in other countries, are encountered infrequently. Among tumors, lung cancer leads among men, breast cancer among women. But in 15 years a sharp increase in stomach cancer cases awaits us: todayUs deprivations of the population will take their toll. When I lecture in the labor collectives, it is awkward for me to speak of rational nutrition - people in general are going half-starved. I especially want to talk about smoking. The widespread publicity about the nation's ill health elicits, to put it mildly, surprise. A number of bans and restrictions of local, including Moscow, authorities is not changing the situation fundamentally. It is necessary, as has occurred in the US and Canada, and for which the French public is campaigning, |
FBIS3-41746_3 | Oncology Center Closes | to ban legally the advertising of tobacco products. Note: our politicians give interviews, as a rule, with a cigarette in their teeth (in his time a chain smoker, as are, incidentally, many surgeons, Nikolay Nikolaevich gave this habit up twenty years ago. - T. S.). Or, for example, athletic competitions are going on, and the entire stadium is plastered with cigarette ads. How can this be reconciled? Moreover, smoking fosters the occurrence not only of cancer of the lung, but of the throat, the urinary bladder, the kidney... Americans are a nation more interested in and knowledgeable about questions of health; therefore, in the US in the last 2 years 3 million people have quit smoking... Yes, 30 per cent is an impressive fact. Could you comment on another percentage that has been mentioned: 42-43 per cent of people with a diagnosis, which until now has sounded like a simple death sentence, do recover... This percentage evidently includes cases caught at an early stage. The WHO has proclaimed: early diagnosis saves the patient's life. This is correct. But now, thanks to advances in chemotherapy we cure even some neglected forms of cancer. We cure cancer of the testis in 85-90 per cent of cases, including those with lung metastases. We even eliminate some tumors of the uterus without operative intervention. At our center 100 sick young children are observed, born of women who have experienced uterine cancer. Osteogenic sarcoma is conquerable in 70-75 per cent. Medicine will very shortly be in a position to cure some malignant tumors completely. Even now 80-85 per cent of children with cancer can be rid of the disease. All we need is a full arsenal of preparations, radiation therapy, and highly qualified specialists.S I believe that you have only the latter at your disposal. We have the equipment for radiation therapy: 60 per cent of patients receive it - in pure form and in combination. Linear accelerators are already in use throughout the world. Here they can be counted on oneUs fingers: the Center, oncological clinics in Volgograd and Arkhangelsk. There are another ten RelephantsS, domestic counterparts of American accelerators, with much poorer capacities. Therefore, gamma therapy is mainly used in the outlying regions. But that is a past era. But the greatest problem is antitumor preparations. We are always short of them. One foreign firm has opened a currency pharmacy at the center. |
FBIS3-41749_0 | Official Sees Further Deterioration of Public Health | Language: Russian Article Type:CSO [Article by A. Yablokov, A. Demin, Russian Federation Interdepartmental Commission on Environmental Safety, ``And Our Health Will be Even Worse''] [Text] The unforgiving statistics are showing that the public health of Russia's citizens is critical and is continuing to deteriorate. Likewise, the demographic situation in Russia is becoming increasingly acute. The most recent statistical data attest to an ``avalanche'' of deaths and ``burnout'' (they are even using this term) of entire population groups, primarily able-bodied men. According to data from the State Statistical Committee, mortality indices are continuing to grow: in 1987, the total mortality rate was 10.5 per 1,000 of the population, and in 1992 and 1993, it rose to 12.2 and 14.6, respectively. Furthermore, the total number of deaths during the last year exceeded the total number of births by more than 50%. According to expert predictions, by early 1994 a stable natural population decrease will be observed in 88 Russian territories which are home to 93% of the total population. For comparison, in 1992, the same situation existed in 45 territories and in 1987--in only three! A further decrease in life expectancy is being predicted. These indicators have been steadily deteriorating since 1986-1987. The anticipated life expectancy among women is 11.8 years longer than that of men--73.8 vs. 62 years. State Statistical Committee analyses demonstrate that if today's mortality age level remains unchanged in Russia, 40% of boys born in 1993 will not reach their sixtieth birthday. What is hiding behind these frightful figures? The mean life expectancy is one of the most objective indicators for determining the quality of life and environmental conditions. According to World Health Organization data, 50-60% of human health depends on the socioeconomic factors, such as nutrition, smoking, personal safety, etc., 20-30% depends on the environmental conditions, 10%--on hereditary factors, and only 7-8%--on medical care proper. Thus, the state of public health in Russia which has been at the center of experts' attention for over 10 years is affected by both the sociopolitical crisis, political instability, and environmental conditions in the country. And as a result, the increasing mortality trend due to chronic and infectious diseases is growing. The aging of Russia's population which is characteristic of all countries also affects the increase in the total mortality indicators: in 1994, the number of retirement-age persons will be more than 20% of the total number of people in Russia. |
FBIS3-41751_0 | Mutations, Unique Syndrome in Village Near Mayak' | Language: Russian Article Type:CSO [Article by editorial board, ``Radiation Around Us''] [Text] This was reported by Nina Solovyeva, an expert from the Novosibirsk Cytology and Genetics Institute, in the course of a ``round table'' at the Russian Federation Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources. According to Miss Solovyeva, an examination of residents from the village of Muchlyumovo located on the river Techa, 78 km downstream from the radioactive waste discharge from the Mayak Scientific Production Association, revealed elements in the chromosomes of certain children which belong neither to the father nor to the mother. In the physicians' opinion, this is a result of mutation changes in the organism. Furthermore, the residents of Muchlyumovo display impairments in their organism which are typical only of this inhabited locality. Thus, e.g., the ailments not detected in other regions include constant dizziness, numbness in the body and limbs, nose and gum bleeding, and gastrointestinal tract disorders. In attempts to treat the residents of Muchlyumovo, children in particular respond inadequately to drugs. Moreover, 33 cases of balding have been recorded among children in recent years, some of them involving total baldness, according to the Postfaktum Agency. |
FBIS3-41753_0 | Academician on Adolescent Girls' Health | Language: Russian Article Type:CSO [Article by G. Serdykovskaya, N. Kuindzhi, ``We Are Behaving Like Comprachicos''] [Text]One of us has already written in Retsept how for many decades we have built--and are continuing to build!--school buildings which do not meet hygienic standards and how the health of many generations is affected by it. Our Institute of Child and Adolescent Hygiene (the only such science establishment not only in Russia but in the entire CIS) is engaged in research in many directions, studying the health of children and adolescents in all its diversity. Some of such studies are unique. In examining one of the biological criteria of women's health, we examined the case histories of the school period of today's first-time mothers [primapara]. They were interviewed in one of Moscow's maternity wards. Data from the questionnaires administered to each woman were complemented with information about the course of her pregnancy and the gynecological diagnosis of labor activity. The resulting studies made it possible to establish the relationship between the course of pregnancy and birth and the characteristics of their lifestyle as children and adolescents. Thus, the first year of menstrual age in 78% was accompanied by various specific manifestations of yet-unformed menstrual cycle whereby 43% of the respondents indicated a general deterioration of health or academic activity during menstrual periods. Approximately 20% of the women identified the menarche year as the most difficult year of learning at school. Among these data, the following highlights are the most interesting. Only about 20% of today's first-time mothers had normal course of pregnancy and physiological delivery. The lowest percentage of unfavorable social and biological factors during the school years was identified in this group of respondents: excessive intellectual or athletic stress, chronic pathologies, and complications during the child-bearing age. The most numerous (approximately 40%) was the contingent of women whose pregnancy and delivery pathology was due to the presence of extragenital processes in the organism as a result of an explicit or, evidently, latent chronic pathology. Allowing for the time factor, we have established that chronic pathology formed in more than 30% of first-time mothers in their childhood and adolescence. Among those under considerable intellectual stress (students at specialized schools of varying intellectual orientation as well as those combining education in a conventional school with training in a music or art school), the frequency of pregnancy complication by anemia increased by threefold and by hypotonia--by |
FBIS3-41753_1 | Academician on Adolescent Girls' Health | cycle whereby 43% of the respondents indicated a general deterioration of health or academic activity during menstrual periods. Approximately 20% of the women identified the menarche year as the most difficult year of learning at school. Among these data, the following highlights are the most interesting. Only about 20% of today's first-time mothers had normal course of pregnancy and physiological delivery. The lowest percentage of unfavorable social and biological factors during the school years was identified in this group of respondents: excessive intellectual or athletic stress, chronic pathologies, and complications during the child-bearing age. The most numerous (approximately 40%) was the contingent of women whose pregnancy and delivery pathology was due to the presence of extragenital processes in the organism as a result of an explicit or, evidently, latent chronic pathology. Allowing for the time factor, we have established that chronic pathology formed in more than 30% of first-time mothers in their childhood and adolescence. Among those under considerable intellectual stress (students at specialized schools of varying intellectual orientation as well as those combining education in a conventional school with training in a music or art school), the frequency of pregnancy complication by anemia increased by threefold and by hypotonia--by tenfold; labor activity anomalies were noted 1.5 times more frequently and surgical intervention during labor compared to the frequency of these indicators among the entire contingent of respondents was more frequent by threefold. The total number of pathological manifestations during pregnancy and labor in each of the women who, during childhood years, combined chronic pathology with considerable intellectual stress was especially significant. In this contingent of first-time mothers, the proportion of various complications in the infant status increased by almost twofold: fetal hypoxia, hypertrophy, and asphyxia. At the same time, moderate athletic activity which was evaluated in women who since childhood participated in extracurricular activities with physical stress in public schools, clubs, palaces of culture, etc., ensured the lowest incidence of pathological manifestations with respect to the course of pregnancy and labor and did not lead to complications in the state of the infant. In this first-time mothers' contingent, all indices characterizing the progress of pregnancy and labor were most favorable. We would like to report one more extremely important fact recorded by anthropological researchers from our institute. Some time ago, the public was well informed about the spread of acceleration among the young generation. But no one has written |
FBIS3-41753_2 | Academician on Adolescent Girls' Health | intellectual stress (students at specialized schools of varying intellectual orientation as well as those combining education in a conventional school with training in a music or art school), the frequency of pregnancy complication by anemia increased by threefold and by hypotonia--by tenfold; labor activity anomalies were noted 1.5 times more frequently and surgical intervention during labor compared to the frequency of these indicators among the entire contingent of respondents was more frequent by threefold. The total number of pathological manifestations during pregnancy and labor in each of the women who, during childhood years, combined chronic pathology with considerable intellectual stress was especially significant. In this contingent of first-time mothers, the proportion of various complications in the infant status increased by almost twofold: fetal hypoxia, hypertrophy, and asphyxia. At the same time, moderate athletic activity which was evaluated in women who since childhood participated in extracurricular activities with physical stress in public schools, clubs, palaces of culture, etc., ensured the lowest incidence of pathological manifestations with respect to the course of pregnancy and labor and did not lead to complications in the state of the infant. In this first-time mothers' contingent, all indices characterizing the progress of pregnancy and labor were most favorable. We would like to report one more extremely important fact recorded by anthropological researchers from our institute. Some time ago, the public was well informed about the spread of acceleration among the young generation. But no one has written anything about the phenomenon of retardation. Yet it does take place. Especially among our girls. In recent decades, they have become not only shorter in height but also lighter in weight and began menstruating later which, in women, is the principal indicator of biological maturity. We promised to present the conclusions at the end of this publication--they are alarming if not tragic. The regimen of academic life has a negative impact on the health of our children, especially girls. And if in the case with school building construction much can be attributed to our constant poverty, how can one explain the unjustified and hygienically unsound prevailing conditions? This does not require any capital outlays but rather an investment of heart, mind, and after all--concern. Are we also short on that too? We picked up the pen with the intention of focusing attention once more on the fact that the five-day week cannot and should not be a universal feature. |
FBIS3-41754_3 | Epidemiological Monitoring of Food Products | of ownership and in all administrative districts of the capital to take samples of wine and vodka products not manufactured in Moscow. The laboratory studies showed that 40 percent of them do not meet State Standard [GOST] requirements. [Semenenko]What kinds of preventive punishment does your service use upon discovering a low-quality product, a product being sold after its expiration date, a storage condition violation, or a failure of merchant enterprises to adhere to public health rules? [Piskarevaya]We stop the sale of low-quality products, close the enterprises, and impose fines on managers and other accountable individuals who violate trade standards. In August alone, we issued 40 decrees halting the operation of small retail and commercial food facilities and more than 90 decrees imposing fines totaling about 3.5 million rubles. [Semenenko]There is a certain clarity regarding preventing food poisonings. Now let us turn to intestinal infections, another extremely timely topic, especially in connection with the spread of cholera in Central Asia, from where we traditionally get outstanding fruits and vegetables. We know of cases of this disease in Moscow as well. [Piskarevaya]Our service monitors all the capital's markets. As far as the spontaneously developing trade in produce on the city's squares and streets is concerned, it is banned by decree of Moscow's Chief State Sanitary Inspector for the sake of citizens' safety. [Semenenko]But they still are still selling... [Piskarevaya]They are only selling because people are buying. And no city police forces would be sufficient to constantly drive these uncontrolled markets away. As soon as they arrive, the merchants scatter. After they [the police] leave, it is if they sprout up from under the ground. [Semenenko]Well, what is the answer? [Piskarevaya]There is only one answer: Take responsibility for one's own health. Do not risk buying products from the hands of a seller who does not have the appropriate medical documents granting him the right to sell. In addition, there is another danger lurking here. No one knows how these fruits and vegetables were grown, how much chemical fertilizer was put on them, and finally under what conditions they were stored and transported. [Semenenko]The problem of storage is also of great interest to our readers because it is directly linked to the quality and safety of food products. We know that previously all fruits and vegetables went to fruit-and-vegetable bases. But now? Not long ago I read a newspaper report about how it is |
FBIS3-41758_2 | Interview With RF Epidemiology Committee Chairman Sore Spot [Bayduzhiy]In the opinion of the director of the sanitary-epidemiological service, is the sanitary-epidemic situation in Russia getting worse or better? [Belyayev]Unfortunately, it is getting worse. This | end of the year. By that time, morbidity due to diphtheria should fall. The same applies to other diseases in its group. [Bayduzhiy]With diphtheria things are more or less clear. But the worsening of the sanitary-epidemiological situation in the country is hardly tied to an outbreak of morbidity due to it alone... [Belyayev]The rapid spread of three other groups of infections is worrying us greatly. First, there are intestinal diseases, among which dysentery and cholera stand out. Here the situation is exacerbated by large migration flows, and this summer was a difficult one for our service. Eighteen cases where cholera was carried into Russia from distant countries were recorded. It was only thanks to emergency efforts that the situation was kept under control. A program to protect Russia's boundaries and territories from dangerous human, animal, and plant diseases being carried in from abroad has now been developed. It will be presented to the government this month. Recently, however, natural foci of the following infections have been revived in Russia herself: malaria, fever, and plague. Ten natural foci of plague alone have been counted on her territory. Among them, the Astrakhan and Kalmykia foci have recently become highly active. Plague causative agent is beginning to circulate actively among the animals there. People's access to these rayons has been sharply restricted; however, a falloff in discipline could lead to very negative consequences. And finally, there is yet another group of infections with increasing morbidity -- venereal diseases. This year, 30,000 cases of early syphilis have been recorded. The level has never been this high since the war. This is especially alarming against the background of the growing threat of AIDS. Despite the fact that 688 HIV-infected individuals have been registered in Russia, we have still been able to hold back the onslaught of AIDS. It is important to do so as long as possible until an antitoxin to this infection is found. [Bayduzhiy]Do they understand how serious the sanitary-epidemiological situation is in the government? [Belyayev]If they did not, Russia would already have millions of patients suffering from infectious diseases. The situation in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, where a catastrophic increase in morbidity has occurred, would have been repeated. Everyone, including the president, is working with us. A concept and federal program for development of sanitary-epidemiological monitoring has been developed. The service has the status of an independent service, and by law, no one |
FBIS3-41758_5 | Interview With RF Epidemiology Committee Chairman Sore Spot [Bayduzhiy]In the opinion of the director of the sanitary-epidemiological service, is the sanitary-epidemic situation in Russia getting worse or better? [Belyayev]Unfortunately, it is getting worse. This | laws in this area. Today there are laws. But do they work? [Cheburayev]The first law, titled ``Regarding Sanitary-Epidemiological Well-Being,'' was issued in 1991. It declared principles that at the time were absolutely new for the USSR and Russia: people's right to a clean environment and participation in its protection, the obligation of government bodies to inform the public of the ecological situation, and the need to compensate for damage to health. In reality, however, the mechanisms of realizing these policies did not exist, and some of them, for example, the opportunity for the public to participate in developing an environmental protection policy or the right to financial compensation for damage inflicted to health, only existed on paper. Problems of a methodological nature became the great obstacle here. How, for example, would it be possible to isolate the role of any one enterprise in harming a person's health as a result of emissions from other factors such as the person's own harmful habits, his heredity, and his unhealthy way of life? Perhaps we have only succeeded in realizing the principle of openness of information most completely. All of the data that the service has regarding the sanitary-epidemiological situation is accessible and published regularly. [Bayduzhiy]Does the service have enough economic levers to act upon the sanitary-epidemiological situation? [Belyayev]We can fine a violator three months' wages. And we recently received the right to fine enterprises. Much remains to be regulated, however. Today, for example, it is very difficult to halt construction that is violating public health standards. Before, everything was simple -- an instruction was given to the bank, which was a government structure, and it halted financing of the construction. Now with the commercial banks, nothing can be done. Or take another example. The legal board has taken a document regarding compensating citizens for damage inflicted on their health that we agreed upon with interested departments and has been tossing it around under various pretexts for half a year already. Obviously, as soon as it is approved, there will be a squall of requests from the public, and they are afraid of this. I think, however, that we will nevertheless push through a similar policy, especially since it is fixed in the draft of the new constitution. [Bayduzhiy]In essence, such a measure would mean a revolution in the government's relationship to the public's health. [Belyayev]Yes, but it is not coming to us |
FBIS3-41762_0 | Improvements Needed in Tuberculosis Screening | Language: Russian Article Type:CSO [Article by Lev Markovich Portnoy, Doctor of Medical Sciences, Professor, Head of the Roentgenological Department of the M. F. Vladimirsky Moscow Oblast Clinical Scientific Research Institute; under the title: The Second Coming of Tuberculous] [Text] A relatively quiet tuberculosis situation with periodic outbursts of this disease, which were being successfully handled by the previously created powerful anti-tuberculosis service, with its fine staffs and network of regional, city, and oblast (kray) anti-tuberculosis dispensaries, characterizes recent years. And we had become accustomed to this situation. But today, suddenly, but perhaps not so unexpectedly, taking the difficult situation in the country into account, the tuberculosis situation has become acute. Not for nothing; after all it is, as we have emphasized, a social disease. And even the mass media, with the whipping up that is characteristic of them, exaggerate the danger of the new incursion of tuberculosis, the possibility of its causing trouble in the very new future cannot in any way be excluded. There are, to a certain degree, additional preconditions for it in the person of a clearly weakening state medicine. Without in any way disputing the situation in the country that predisposes to tuberculosis, I believe that the simple repetition of measures, proven in the past, directed to the campaign against this malady, must not be permitted. Times today are different, medicine has different possibilities, and the general situational background is not what it was after the war. By the way, observing the away in which our organizational structures are beginning to act, it is difficult to get away from the impression of a patent duplication of the methods of fighting against tuberculosis that were used in the remote postwar years. To substantiate what I am saying, I would like to cite the fluorography situation in our public health system as an example. Certainly, no one will dispute the fact that in the campaign against the tuberculosis epidemic in the war-turn country, fluorography did in fact have great significance. A fairly good material and technological base for those years was created. The service worked in close contact with the phthisiatric (anti-tuberculosis) service. In essence, the former was organizationally subordinate to the latter. It can be stated that in those years fluorography was one of the principal actors among the RparticipantsS in the successful attack on tuberculosis. Years past; tuberculosis took up its usual place in the overall |
FBIS3-41764_0 | Cancer Increase in Byelarus Children | Language: Russian Article Type:CSO [Article: ``Chernobyl Echo''] [Text] (ITAR-TASS) -- An increase in oncological diseases of the thyroid gland has been observed among the children victimized by the Chernobyl catastrophe in rayons of Byelarus. An increase in cancerous diseases of the thyroid gland after Chernobyl had been predicted by specialists but for later time periods. In 10 years before the Chernobyl catastrophe, only 7 cases of thyroid cancer were discovered in children. In 1990 alone, 47 such cases were recorded, and 43 cases were recorded in the first half of 1993. The overwhelming majority of cases of disease have occurred in the Gomel Oblast. Ranking second is not the Mogilev Oblast as might be expected, but rather the Brest Oblast. The village of Olmany in the oblast's Stolin Rayon, which used to be known in Byelarus for its literature thanks to Yakub Kolas's novel ``Tryasina'' has now become famous for its ``radiation.'' The level of contamination of the soil with cesium in this swamp-surrounded small corner is just 1-5 Ci/km[.sup]2[/]; however, the coefficient of radionuclide transfer into products grown here is extremely high. Gastrointestinal tract injury has been noted in many children of the village of Olmany, and the health of 77 children (of the 250 living here) is in such a threatened state that oncological diseases are inevitable in several years for them without preventive medical measures. In 1991 physicians discovered dangerous changes in the digestive systems of 8.1 percent of Olmany's children, whereas today every fourth child has such changes. Specialists confirm that local residents must either be resettled or completely switched over to products that are shipped in. Indeed, even giving the children here regular trips to Germany, Italy, and summer rest bases in clean rayons to improve their sanitary conditions will not help them because after they return home, their health status will return to its previous level owing to strong irradiation. |
FBIS3-41768_0 | Bubonic Plague Death in Kazakhstan | Language: Russian Article Type:CSO [Article by Oleg Kvyatkovskiy, Kazakhstan] [Text] Dozens of physicians together with hundreds of experts from the most diverse fields in four Kazakhstan oblasts have completed a vast complex of preventive measures necessitated by the death of a three-year-old girl from cutaneous bubonic plague. The child fell ill after visiting her shepherd grandfather in the prairies. She was transported to the village of Shalkar in Aktyubinsk oblast in a packed passenger train, and in principle, dozens of people could have been infected... The girl who could not be diagnosed at the time died in the rayon hospital. And the physicians, having finally comprehended that they were dealing with plague, sounded alarm throughout the entire southern Kazakhstan. As a result, thousands of animals, primarily camels who, along with rodents, dogs, and cats, are capable of being vectors of this very dangerous disease were examined. One and a half thousand people were vaccinated and about a hundred of them hospitalized for preventive treatment. The south of Aktyubinsk oblast and the footsteps of the Urals are regarded in Kazakhstan as potential sources of plague. For example, in the Aralsk rayon, this disease has been regularly recorded for several years in a row. But in Aktyubinsk oblast, plague has not been seen for a long time... |
FBIS3-41769_0 | Bubonic Plague Death in Kazakhstan | Language: Russian Article Type:CSO [Article by Oleg Kvyatkovskiy, Kazakhstan] [Text] Dozens of physicians together with hundreds of experts from the most diverse fields in four Kazakhstan oblasts have completed a vast complex of preventive measures necessitated by the death of a three-year-old girl from cutaneous bubonic plague. The child fell ill after visiting her shepherd grandfather in the prairies. She was transported to the village of Shalkar in Aktyubinsk oblast in a packed passenger train, and in principle, dozens of people could have been infected... The girl who could not be diagnosed at the time died in the rayon hospital. And the physicians, having finally comprehended that they were dealing with plague, sounded alarm throughout the entire southern Kazakhstan. As a result, thousands of animals, primarily camels who, along with rodents, dogs, and cats, are capable of being vectors of this very dangerous disease were examined. One and a half thousand people were vaccinated and about a hundred of them hospitalized for preventive treatment. The south of Aktyubinsk oblast and the footsteps of the Urals are regarded in Kazakhstan as potential sources of plague. For example, in the Aralsk rayon, this disease has been regularly recorded for several years in a row. But in Aktyubinsk oblast, plague has not been seen for a long time... |
FBIS3-41772_0 | Brucellosis Cases Triple in Kyrgyzstan | Language: Russian Article Type:CSO [Article by correspondent M. Khamidov: ``Infection Gathers a Generous Harvest''] [Text] The incidence of brucellosis among people nearly tripled in recent years in Osh Oblast. Three hundred sixty-four cases of infection by this extremely serious ailment, which often leads to disability, were registered last year. The especially dangerous infection is gathering its terrible harvest in Alayskiy, Chon-Alayskiy, Uzgenskiy, Kara-Kuldzhinskiy and Kara-Suyskiy rayons. The economic damages from brucellosis have exceeded 2 million rubles. Over 10,000 man-days have been lost. The main cause of the misfortune is poor sheepherding practices. Attention to public health and veterinary measures recently dropped abruptly. Moreover the veterinary service is experiencing the most acute shortage of everything. According to data from specialists of the oblast epidemiological station, the availability of individual equipment protecting against brucellosis infection and of detergents and disinfectants to livestock breeders barely covers 30 percent of the need. Ten annual salaries (one-time assistance) plus the monthly salary--such is the amount of the pension paid to a shepherd deemed to be group 1 disabled. But wouldn't it be better to spend this money to eliminate the cause of the misfortune--to improve the condition of the herd and upgrade the quality of the sector's management? |
FBIS3-41775_2 | East European AIDS Meeting in Riga | that the world community can make. The point is that on this very day, the epidemic is incapacitating the young and most capable members of society. According to today's estimates, direct health care costs in connection with AIDS in 1992 totaled $5 billion throughout the world. If the indirect costs of the epidemic are taken into account, that figure must be multiplied by 10. And that still does not include the economic losses.'' The future largely depends on today's efforts. In development of the epidemic, East European is lagging 5-6 years. And it is especially important that this time be used effectively because the economies of most countries in the region are not in the best condition. What kind of resources must be invested in preventing an epidemic in Central and East European? About $248 million is needed to provide the public with condoms and market them. The costs of treating patients amount to about $151 million. Measures regarding ``sex industry'' workers and their clients will cost about $48 million. Public health education in schools will cost a bit less, about $46 million. Among other items of expenditure, the following should be noted: preventing in-hospital infection ($25 million); running a mass media campaign ($15 million); guaranteeing the safety of blood and blood products; preventing infection among drug addicts, and developing national programs. These are approximate figures. Participating in the meeting were the Baltic countries, Russia, and virtually all other states of the CIS -- Ukraine, Byelarus, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan. Ilona Kikbush [transliteration], a department director of the World Health Organization, said that for the first time, physicians and financial experts were discussing the problems of AIDS together. This was dictated by the very logic of life: In keeping society healthy, the medical community is far from the sole and main player. Experts from Switzerland and England talked about their interesting experience. There is a very strong preconceived opinion that it is impossible to affect anything connected with sexual bias. Switzerland's experience says otherwise. As a result of an active campaign, 60 percent of the country's young people use condoms (only one third of that amount did previously). The campaign in the Swiss mass media was run under the slogan: Be faithful to your partner or to a condom. There is a popular picture postcard where a condom is, please forgive me, in place of the sun. Perhaps this |
FBIS3-41801_0 | AIDS, Other Infectious Diseases Spreading | Language: English Article Type:CSO [Article by Nigel Hawkes, Science Editor: "Infectious Diseases Evolve To Stage Deadly Comeback"; first paragraph is THE TIMES introduction] [Text] Illnesses that scientists thought they had conquered with immunisation programmes and antibiotics are beginning to reappear. Infectious diseases, once believed to be disappearing as a serious threat, have made a dramatic and frightening comeback, the British Association for the Advancement of Science was told yesterday. "Many old diseases have returned and a host of new ones not even dreamt of 15 years ago have made their appearance," Professor Michael Levin, of St Mary's Hospital Medical School, told the association's annual conference at Keele University. "So great is the number of new or re-emerging infectious diseases that it would be impossible to mention even a small proportion of them in a brief talk." The diseases included AIDS, new strains of cholera, new hepatitis viruses, toxic shock syndromes caused by bacteria, Kawasaki disease, and new, deadly strains of the Hanta virus in America. Such was the complacency about infectious disease in the 1960's, when antibiotics and immunisation appeared to have conquered them, that by 1970 Britain had only one specialist in childhood infectious diseases: Doctor Bill Marshall, of Great Ormond Street hospital. Professor Levin said that when he died in 1984 there was no paediatrician trained to take over. A bacterium similar to those responsible for scarlet fever and rheumatic fever was now causing a new disease in children, whose symptoms are fever, shock and multiple organ failure. The disease, called streptococcal toxic shock syndrome, is, like rheumatic fever, caused by a streptococcus. Another new disease, named after the Japanese doctor who first described it, was now the commonest cause of acquired heart disease in children in many countries. Kawasaki disease has affected more than 100,000 children in Japan, striking about the age of one. While most children recover in three weeks, about 3 percent die from blood clots forming in the coronary arteries. The cause of the disease has yet to be discovered, but is likely to be a virus or bacterium widely found in the community but causing disease in only a few of those infected. Professor Levin said that in Britain the disease affected about 180 children a year, of whom one third suffered permanent coronary damage. Lyme disease is an arthritic condition in children spread by ticks. The cause is a bacterium related to |
FBIS3-41804_0 | Doctor Claims To Have Caught Gulf Syndrome in UK | Language: English Article Type:CSO [Article by Edward Pilkington: "Doctor Claims She Caught `Gulf Syndrome' at UK Base"] [Text] A doctor who worked on an RAF base in Stafford during the Gulf war yesterday raised fears that an unexplained illness known as Gulf syndrome could be contagious after she claimed to have contracted the symptoms in Britain. The doctor, who asked not to be named, collapsed in June 1991 and was taken to intensive care after she developed symptoms similar to those suffered by about 500 British and 4,000 US Gulf veterans. She had trouble breathing, a high temperature, severe chest pains, profuse sweating and sickness. No explanation could be found. Disclosures from America have prompted concern that viral or chemical component of weapons unleased during the Gulf conflict three years ago could have been transmitted genetically to the children of returning soldiers. The doctor's statement suggests that there may also be a risk of person-to-person contamination. Studies by solicitors suggest there may be up to 500 British veterans suffering from the syndrome. Soldiers who participated in Operation Desert Storm have reported symptoms as diverse as kidney failure, hair loss and flaking skin that may have been induced, it is suggested, from agents contained in Iraqi Scud missiles or other arms used in the conflict. However, the Ministry of Defence says no evidence of Gulf syndrome has been found among British veterans. In the months before she collapsed, the doctor had been treating six Gulf veterans from the RAF's tactical supply wing, which had been responsible for supplying all three services in the Gulf with food and ammunition. One patient was chronically ill with severe diarrhoea, sweats and pains. Neither she nor a district physician could reach a definite diagnosis. The doctor believes she contracted the illness either directly from patients or from dead feral cats discovered among containers of equipment brought back from the Gulf at the end of the war. The cats were found in May 1991 when the containers were unloaded at RAF Stafford, but not disposed of in line with hygiene regulations, she alleges. "Soldiers at the base thought the discovery of dead cats from the Gulf was hilarious," she said. "They laughed about it and used the corpses as a football." Somebody wrapped one of the cats up in bread and put it in the canteen with a notice: "Special today -- cat sandwiches." The doctor |
FBIS3-41809_0 | Crohn's Disease Rises in Children, Causes Sought | Language: English Article Type:CSO [Article by Chris Mihill, Medical Correspondent: "Measles Vaccination Tied to Bowel Illness"] [Excerpt] Vaccination against measles may cause a serious bowel condition which has shown a dramatic rise in recent years, researchers said yesterday. It is thought that the measles virus, both in the wild form and in that used in the vaccine, may damage blood vessels which feed the intestines, causing a long-term condition called Crohn's disease which results in severe abdominal pain and diarrhoea. The researchers stressed that even if the link was proved, measles vaccination should not be abandoned, because it offered protection against a serious illness with consequences which could include brain damage and pneumonia. But there would be a case for finding different forms of the vaccine. Andrew Wakefield, director of the inflammatory bowel disease study group at the Royal Free hospital in London, said that Crohn's disease affected at least 40,000 people in the United Kingdom. It caused inflammation and ulceration of the gastro-intestinal tract, often requiring major surgery. Mr. Wakefield said studies in Scotland had found that over the last 20 years cases in children had risen from four a million to 29 a million. There was evidence that the measles virus could cause a blockage of the tiny vessels controlling the blood flow to the intestines, he told a meeting in London of the British Digestive Foundation. His group had identified the virus in a set of patients, and other researchers in America and Sweden had confirmed the finding. [passage omitted] Guardian Newspapers Limited, November 17, 1993 |
FBIS3-41810_0 | Alert Over Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease in Women | Language: English Article Type:CSO [Article by Jeremy Laurance, Health Services Correspondent: "12,000 at Risk From Brain Disease May Never Be Traced"; first paragraph is THE TIMES introduction] [Text] A new alert started over Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease as women trying to call a helpline found the switchboard jammed. Up to 12,000 brain surgery patients who are at risk of dying from Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) may never be traced, the Department of Health said yesterday. Details of the threat to thousands more patients emerged as hundreds of callers jammed an emergency helpline set up after the health department announced that a hormone treatment for infertility might put some patients at risk. Women complained that they could not get through to the helpline despite an increase in the number of operators answering calls from 12 to 65. "I am not hysterical about this but I want to establish what is going on," said a company director who called THE TIMES. "I have been on the phone all morning and I cannot get through. I think the way this is being handled is appalling." Doctors estimate that 300 women who took human pituitary gonadotrophin over a 30-year period up to 1985 may be at risk, but more than 100,000 women have taken other forms of the hormone and have been jamming the lines. People who received growth hormone obtained from human pituitary glands as children are also at risk. The department confirmed last night that brain surgery patients operated on between 1971 and 1991 who had a form of preserved human tissue grafted into their brains were also at risk from CJD, the human form of "mad cow" disease. Three patients in the UK have died from the condition after brain grafts and there have been five other deaths worldwide. The preserved tissue, obtained from the brains of cadavers and marketed as Lyodura, was withdrawn in 1991. The health department had given a warning about its risks four years earlier. Lyodura is a preserved form of the membrane covering the brain used to replace the patient's own membrane when it is damaged in surgery. It was obtained from the brains of cadavers and freeze-dried to preserve it. Scientists assumed that this process would destroy the CJD virus but when the first case of the disease linked with the material emerged in the US in 1987, the manufacturing process was tightened. A second warning was issued |
FBIS3-41815_0 | Concern Over Transmission of Spongiform Encephalopathy | Language: English Article Type:CSO [Article by Nigel Hawkes, Science Editor: "Zoo Antelope Catch Mad Cow Disease"] [Text] Scientists at London zoo have discovered that a strain of "mad cow disease" affecting a type of antelope can be transmitted much more easily than was thought. The finding uncovers a threat to breeding other species in captivity unless it can be shown that they are not equally vulnerable. The scientists say there is no evidence that similar transmission is occurring among cows. The zoo's small herd of kudu, spiral-horned antelopes closely related to cows, has been severely hit by a disease similar to bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE). Of eight animals born in the herd since 1987, five have contracted the disease. Only one of the five could have eaten feed containing protein from sheep, believed to be the origin of the outbreak. The kudu is not the only zoo species to suffer the disease since it appeared in cows. It has also been found in domestic cats and their larger relations, the cheetah and the puma, in eland and nyala, and in the gemsbok and the Arabian oryx. In the United States, mink have been affected by it. The infective agent and its mode of transmission are unknown, but the evidence from kudu suggests that some species may be more easily infected than others. Sheep are believed to catch the disease by contact with placentas in fields after births, but in the case of the kudu even this route seems unlikely. In THE VETERINARY RECORD, the scientists eliminate most routes of infection. Infected feed cannot account for four cases. Nor can at least three of the affected animals have caught the disease from their mothers, who did not suffer from it. It is possible but unlikely that the mothers were carriers that passed on the infection without having symptoms themselves. If this were so, it would have important implications for the disease in cows. It is more likely, the scientists believe, that an unidentified agent entered the herd in contaminated feed and was passed along, as with more mundane infections. Because of the danger to other animals, the kudu herd has been isolated. Another danger taken seriously by the zoo, a world centre for breeding rare and endangered species, is that animals bred in captivity could carry the infection when released into the wild. If they proved as vulnerable as the kudu, |
FBIS3-41816_0 | Cattle Tested for AIDS-Like Illness | Language: English Article Type:CSO [Article by Michael Hornsby, agriculture correspondent: "Cattle Are Tested for AIDS-Like Illness"] [Text] Scientists are investigating what they think may be an AIDS-like disease of cattle in Britain. Samples of blood from the sick animals are being tested for signs of a virus that is related to HIV, the cause of AIDS in humans. Experts on BIV (bovine immuno-deficiency virus) at the Institute for Animal Health in Berkshire were called in after a cattle herd from a farm in Cheshire developed breathing difficulties and other symptoms that resisted treatment. Joe Brownlie, head of the institute's BIV research team, confirmed that tests had been run to detect the virus or its antibodies. "We are actively investigating," he said. "There are no confirmed results as yet. At this stage, it is more of a look-see exercise." The Agriculture Ministry declined to disclose details of the disease on the farm or its exact whereabouts. Keith Meldrum, the Chief Veterinary Officer, said the animals were being tested for other viruses as well as BIV. Scientists say they can see no threat from BIV to human health because lentiviruses (a group including BIV and HIV that is known to provoke slow-developing sickness in horses, goats, cats and sheep as well as humans) are highly specific to particular species. BIV was isolated in the United States in the early 1970's, though initially given a different name. It was only in the mid-1980's that scientists noticed the similarity between BIV and HIV. |
FBIS3-41817_0 | Unknown Disease Blights Alder Trees, Plague Feared | Language: English Article Type:CSO [Article by Michael Hornsby, countryside correspondent: "Unknown Disease Blights Alder Trees"] [Text] Britain's riversides and wetlands are threatened by a disease which may be killing the alder trees that grow there. Scientists fear the plague may prove as devastating as that which wiped out most of England's elm trees 20 years ago and is now killing the new elms that sprung from the root systems of the old. Fungi is believed to be attacking the alders' roots and causing the branches to die back, but experts disagree over the seriousness of the disease. The most alarming case is at the National Grid Company's environmental education centre near Canterbury, Kent, which includes a 20-acre nature reserve built around a water filled former gravel quarry. Tony Harman, the centre's manager, began noticing two years ago that the tips of alder branches were dying, particularly at the top of trees. "Since then it has got a lot worse," he said. "We reckon we have now lost about 40 percent of our alders." Some of the trees, their roots weakened, toppled over into the water and others have been turned into leafless skeletons. Some had to be cut down because falling branches endangered school children visiting the reserve. Alders account for up to 30 percent of tree cover on riverbanks. Georges Dusart, a senior lecturer in ecology at Christ Church College in Canterbury, said: "Alders not only look attractive; they are also important for fish life by providing river shade and food in the form of insects that fall from their leaves. "I have been walking along riverbanks for 25 years and I have never seen so many alder deaths before." In an article in Farmers Weekly earlier this summer, Dr. Dussart asked farmers with diseased alders to telephone him. He soon received calls from all parts of England. The Forestry Commission is more cautious about the extent of the disease. David Rose, a tree pathologist at the commission's Alice Holt research station near Farnham, Surrey, said: "There does appear to be a recurring fungal problem with alders. It is locally serious, but there is nothing yet to indicate we are facing a national epidemic on the scale of Dutch elm disease." The preliminary results of analysis of tree samples from the Canterbury site suggest that the fungus attacking the roots of the alders belongs to the phytophthora family, which |
FBIS3-41821_0 | Government, Academic Joint HIV Research Program | Language: Japanese Article Type:CSO [Text] The Science and Technology Agency (STA), the Ministry of Health and Welfare (MHW) and the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fishery (MAFF), in conjunction with universities, have embarked on the development of basic technologies to control the infection and outbreak of the AIDS virus (human immunodeficiency virus, HIV). This will be carried out as a 3-year project from this fiscal year, as comprehensive research under the FY93 Science and Technology Promotion and Coordination Budget. Through this research, an infection and outbreak biological model, which is needed for R&D on the treatment of the disease, will be developed. Also, the living environment (reproductive cycle) mechanism of HIV, which breaks down the sophisticated immune system of an organism and penetrates cells, will be studied and the technology to control the multiplying and infection of the virus will be developed. It appears that this will open up an important path to the development of effective treatment of AIDS. At present, the fact that an appropriate biological system for experimentation has not been established is pointed out as a factor that is hampering R&D on the treatment of AIDS, and an urgent response is required. The rapid reproductive cycle of HIV and its extremely high variability also are substantial barriers to R&D. To overcome these barriers, the comprehensive research project will proceed based on three main tasks: (1) Development of an infection and outbreak biological model; (2) Development of control technology aimed at the virus multiplication process; and (3) Development of control technology aimed at the virus infection process. Participating research organizations include STA's Institute of Physical and Chemical Research, MHW's National Institute of Health, MAFF's National Institute of Animal Health, Kyoto University and Tokyo Medical and Dental University. The spread of the AIDS virus begins when it couples with CD4 (receptor) of a helper T-cell. That composite enters a cell and begins to multiply, thus advancing to the next stage of infection. The virus does not advance to infection if it does not couple with the receptor. That is why the chimpanzee, which can be infected by the virus, is being used as a biological model in current AIDS research. However, using chimpanzees hinders the efficiency of research because raising and testing chimpanzees is costly, according to STA's R&D Bureau. Under this research project, the mouse, in which the appropriate background at the gene level exists, will be |
FBIS3-41823_0 | Rare Earth Cutting Ability for DNA, RNA Useful in AIDS Research | Language: Japanese Article Type:CSO [Text] Recently, a research group headed by Professor Shin Komiyama of the industrial chemistry division of Tokyo University's Engineering Department discovered that cerium and other lanthanide ions and lanthanide complexes very rapidly hydrolyze DNA and RNA phosphodiester bonding under mild conditions. This is fundamentally different from the existing method of breaking up DNA by radical cutting, and its most unique characteristic is that cutting is done by hydrolysis, the same as with natural enzymes. It is predicted that this can be used as "scissors" that can cut human DNA at any desired location by bonding lanthanide complex to nucleic acid recognizing molecules. If it can be given concrete form, this will have broad application in research on the treatment of cancer and AIDS, and future advances in research will be carefully watched. In recent years, advances have been made in research on man-made materials that will selectively cut DNA and RNA. There are many restriction enzymes in the natural world that cut DNA and RNA, but while restriction enzymes uniquely recognize the base sequence of DNA and hydrolyze efficiently, cutting location is limited by type of enzyme and cutting cannot be performed at specified locations. So far, however, artificial restriction enzymes that will cut DNA by the hydrolyses method used by restriction enzymes have not been developed. This is because DNA phosphodiester bonding is extremely stable, with a half-life of about 200 million years (under pH7, 25C conditions; RNA is about 130 years), and the artificial enzymes developed so far break up DNA, and in effect cut them through radical generation. The Komiyama group and others have been conducting research on cutting DNA and RNA phosphodiester bonding by hydrolysis. In the case of RNA, success has been achieved by using a cobalt complex as a catalyst, but research had not made progress in the case of DNA, which has an extremely long half-life. Based on knowledge gained thus far, the Komiyama group conducted research with lanthanide, a trivalent ion like cobalt, and as a result, confirmed that cerium and other lanthanide ions hydrolyze DNA at a very rapid speed. Specifically, in a pH7, 50C buffer solution, cerium and the other lanthanide base cyclic complexes in Figure 1 were added to dimer DNA (TPT). The reaction product was measured by high-speed liquid chromatography (HPLC), and the cutting reaction was studied. TPT peak went down in a few |
FBIS3-41825_1 | EP Requests General Prohibition of Cloning of Humans | urgent debates at its session at the end of October, Parliament adopted a resolution denouncing the cloning of human beings for any reason, including research, as a serious violation of fundamental human rights and an act that violates respect for the individual, is morally detestable and ethically unacceptable. The EP requests the Commission to draft a report at the earliest opportunity on any experiments in this field that may be underway in the Community and to immediately submit a proposal with a view to prohibiting such experimentation on Community territory. It also calls on the Community to take the initiative internationally to convene negotiations for a general prohibition of the cloning of humans. Presented by the Greens, this resolution was given the unanimous support of all the political groups. As the first parliament in the world to adopt a resolution on this subject, the European Parliament has taken an extremely important initiative in the combat for human dignity, pointed out Mr. Paul Lannoye (Greens, Belgian). Expressing indignation over what he called "the worst news of the week", Mr. Otto Habsburg (Christian Democrat, German) regretted that humanity has reached the stage at which reality, in which we can now "truly create Frankensteins", is more terrifying than fiction. "Nothing stops inventiveness," noted Professor Leon Schwartzenberg (Socialist, French), regretting that "duplicates" have been successfully created. Justifications exist, but they are all unacceptable, he added, before raising the following question: "When will women be replaced by incubators?" Human beings cannot be reduced to biological material, he went on to note. The MEP [Members of European Parliament] concluded by calling for legal provisions serving as "genuine commandments for humanity" so that Rabelais' famous comment will not come true: "Science without conscience is the ruination of the soul." On behalf of the European Commission, Sir Leon Brittan recalled that the goal of the American experiment was to help couples who cannot have children and that researchers have themselves declared that they do not intend to go further. The Commission is not aware of any experiments of this type being conducted in the Community. In any event, such experiments could not receive Community funding. He added that several Member States, including the Netherlands, Denmark, Ireland and the United Kingdom, already have legal provisions banning this type of research. Even if no Community legislation exists, there is consensus on this question throughout the Community, concluded Sir Leon Brittan. |
FBIS3-41829_0 | Typhus Outbreak; President Calls For International Medical Assistance | Language: English Article Type:BFN [Text] Pristina, January 24 (ATA) -- There was a boom of typhus in Kosova last week. Thirty Albanian patients infected by typhus were sent to the infective clinic of Pristina. The physicians warned there are other patients infected by typhus, but this number is not yet made evident. As a result of this serious epidemiological situation in Kosova, there are several patients infected by hepatitis and rubella who are being treated at home because of there is no room in the Pristina clinics. Physicians think that the virus of salmonella must have been in the water. Before the boom of the epidemic in Shtimje, in which typhus cases have been in a greater number than in other zones of Kosova, the violent Serbian organs forced the only Albanian epidemiologist to live his job under the pretext that "there was no need for him". The violent Serbian organs in Kosova have expelled some 2000 Albanian physicians and other medical workers from the medical institutions of the region. Five hundred Albanian medical workers have been warned to leave their jobs recently in Mitrovica and in the communes near the president of Kosova Republic, Mr. Ibrahim Rugova, appealed in his recent press conference to international medical institutions to give aid to Kosova in order to face the grave situation there. |
FBIS3-41831_0 | Report Submitted to UN General Assembly on U.S. Blockade | Language: Spanish Article Type:BFN [Excerpts] United Nations, 15 Oct (PL) -- A group of experts has estimated that, since it began, the U.S. unilateral blockade has cost Cuba $40.8 billion. The figure, considered preliminary by Cuban economists, appears in a letter and annex sent by Fernando Remirez de Estenoz, Cuban ambassador to the United Nations, to UN Secretary General Butrus Butrus-Ghali and distributed at UN Headquarters as an official document of the General Assembly. [passage omitted] The report stresses that one of the major strategic impacts of the blockade consists in closing Cuba's access to advanced technology and any kind of scientific and technical exchange. It adds that in the field of medicines, the U.S. blockade has had particularly harsh consequences in that it has limited the nation's ability to acquire third-generation antibiotics essential in treating severe infections and cytostatic medication used on cancer patients. Among other problems, the report stresses that the price of insulin, which can only be obtained through a European supplier, has been driven higher because of the great demand in Cuba. There are an average of 16.5 diabetics for every 1,000 residents, and many Cuban diabetics are dependent on insulin. |
FBIS3-41833_0 | Resurgence of Cholera, Leprosy, Other Dread Diseases | Language: Portuguese Article Type:CSO [Article by Chico Otavio: "Diseases of Poverty"] [Text] The lack of basic sanitation in over 90 percent of Brazil's municipalities has caused the return of cholera and leprosy, which would have been prevented with clean water. The dream has ended. A year after having served as the site of the UN Conference on Environment and Development, Brazil is confronting the most insidious type of attack on the environment: the tragedy of poverty. Diseases considered eradicated, such as cholera and leprosy, are returning, exposing a reality quite different from the ideals of a healthy life preached at Rio-92. The Brazilian basic sanitation system is a failure, and has caused the country to spend billions of dollars to combat illnesses that could easily have been avoided with a mere supply of sewers and clean water. According to the health expert, Paulo Buss, vice president of education and training at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, Fiocruz, Brazil's poverty is responsible for the resurgence of five of the world's seven oldest plagues: malaria, leprosy, leishmaniasis, tuberculosis, and cholera. He claims that the deeper the Brazilian recession, the larger the number of inhabitants vulnerable to these diseases becomes. According to the Fiocruz studies, malaria has already reached the level of 530,000 cases per year, concentrated in the States of Amazonas and Para. Tuberculosis, on the other hand, has totaled 80,000 cases, distributed throughout the entire territory. Although it failed to evoke the interest of Brazilian diplomats, the problem was not ignored at the 1992 meeting. In the Health Charter, the principal document produced at the parallel conference on environment, health, and development, health specialists from all over the world warned of the relationship between the inequitable income in Brazil and short life expectancy at birth. They claimed that the high perinatal and infant mortality rate could be explained by the difficulty in gaining access to quality preventive and remedial health services. The cholera epidemic is another example of this relationship. Studies show that most of the 8,000 cases reported this year affected the population group earning less than two minimum wages. The health experts explain why poverty is an ecological problem as well: "Both extreme poverty and extreme wealth are associated with predatory use of natural resources, resulting in dissipation, pollution, and environmental deterioration." According to the document, hasty solutions almost always have ephemeral results, often ultimately causing new problems even more |
FBIS3-41833_2 | Resurgence of Cholera, Leprosy, Other Dread Diseases | They claimed that the high perinatal and infant mortality rate could be explained by the difficulty in gaining access to quality preventive and remedial health services. The cholera epidemic is another example of this relationship. Studies show that most of the 8,000 cases reported this year affected the population group earning less than two minimum wages. The health experts explain why poverty is an ecological problem as well: "Both extreme poverty and extreme wealth are associated with predatory use of natural resources, resulting in dissipation, pollution, and environmental deterioration." According to the document, hasty solutions almost always have ephemeral results, often ultimately causing new problems even more difficult to solve. Brazil is the champion of ephemeral solutions. During the year of Rio-92, the public sector spent nearly $11 billion in an attempt to cure the immense contingent of sick Brazilians. Over 560 billion cruzeiros were spent on consultations at hospitals and health stations run by the federal, state, or municipal governments, resulting in 13.6 million hospital confinements. In 80 percent of the consultations and 65 percent of the hospital confinements, the fundamental cause of the gigantic first-aid facility that Brazil has become is just one: the lack of basic sanitation. It is estimated that, each year, the government spends $2.5 million treating illnesses directly caused by the extremely bad conditions under which most of the Brazilian population lives. A summary of the poverty (of which hunger is only one component) may be observed in a survey conducted by the Brazilian Association of Sanitary and Environmental Engineering, ABES: 92 percent of Brazil's municipalities lack sewage treatment; 59 percent have no final destination for waste; and 50 percent are without treated water. In the Northern region, where diarrheas rank first on the list of diseases with the highest mortality rate, only 2.24 percent of the population is served by the sewer system. In Amazonas, only the capital, Manaus, has the system, and yet it is still without suitable treatment. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |Sewer Systems in Brazil | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |Area |Municipalities with sewa-|Municipalities with sewa-| | |ge collection systems (i-|ge treatment (in percent)| | |n percent) | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |Brazil |47 |8 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |North |8 |2 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |Northeast |26 |4 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |Southeast |91 |15 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |South |39 |7 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |West-Central |13 |4 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |Source: IBGE [Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics]/ National Sur-| |vey on Basic Sanitation | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
FBIS3-41835_0 | Health Minister Reports Incidence of AIDS | Language: English Article Type:BFN [Report by Judy Siegel] [Excerpt] Peace could promote the spread of AIDS here, as open borders and casual sex with foreigners are liable to increase the risk of infection, Health Minister Hayim Ramon said yesterday. He was speaking to reporters in advance of World AIDS Day, which will be observed tomorrow here and abroad. Ramon said his ministry, which this year allocated NIS [new Israeli shekels] 900,000 for AIDS information campaigns and an additional NIS 4 million for testing of carriers and screening the entire blood supply, will have to increase its publicity programs when peace comes. He was pleased to report that only 145 HIV carriers were discovered during the first 10 months of the year; if this relatively slow pace continues, there will be 174 newly discovered HIV carriers in all of 1993, compared with 201 last year. The decrease, however, could be attributed by fewer individuals voluntarily going for testing. The ministry estimates that there are one or two undiscovered carriers for each known carrier, and some voluntary groups claim this figure is too conservative. A worrisome statistic that demands intensification of the ministry's information campaign is that half of those infected with HIV this year are between 15 and 24. The share of women among the carriers is climbing; for every two men who are infected, three women become carriers. By the year 2000, HIV infection is expected to be nearly equal between the sexes. Carriers can expect to live no more than five to 10 years after initial infection by the virus. Since women can infect their babies (in the womb or via the birth canal), the number of infants with HIV is expected to increase around the world. A total of 43 Israeli children have been infected by their mothers; six of them developed AIDS (three of them died) and the rest are carriers. [passage omitted] |
FBIS3-41868_0 | Regime Reportedly Hiding Chemical Weapons in Oil Pipes | Language: Arabic Article Type:BFN [Text] In its Monday issue, the newspaper AL-MU'TAMAR reported that news coming from the areas under the Iraqi regime's control indicate that the regime is hiding its chemical weapons in the oil pipes located between al-Fallujah City and the Jordanian border. This is the last desperate attempt by the Iraqi regime to hide its chemical and biological weapons from the eyes of the international inspectors. |
FBIS3-41873_1 | Energy Official Details Nuclear Achievements, Capabilities | of funds to impede their work. They have built locally several major parts for a nuclear power plant that were previously imported, and have not let external impediments stand in the way of the smooth operation of their program. Pakistan's first nuclear power plant was supplied by Canada some 20-22 years ago, but due to international pressure it soon stopped supplying uranium, the fuel; heavy water; and spare parts. This was a great challenge for Pakistan, which our scientists accepted with great dexterity. They succeeded in keeping the plant operational by utilizing local resources. China is the only country that has provided a 300-kilowatt nuclear power plant, now being constructed at Chashma. Dr. Ashfaq Ahmed said that we are capable of building nuclear power stations. Nuclear energy is indispensable for Pakistan. Pakistan has no option but to use nuclear technology to increase electricity production, because it cannot meet all of its energy requirements by utilizing such conventional energy production resources as water, oil, gas, and coal. The country is facing the difficulty of power blackouts due to the shortage of electricity. The nuclear energy chief said there are 6,550 nuclear medicine centers in various countries around the world, of which nine are in Pakistan. Several of these centers will be set up in the country to help diagnose and treat complicated diseases. The private sector will be encouraged to play a role in this field as well. He added that nuclear technology is also being used in the agricultural field, and 18 new crop varieties have been discovered. Ashfaq Ahmed declared that Pakistan's nuclear program is solely for peaceful purposes. Nuclear power plants generate 70 percent of the world's electricity. France meets 75 percent of its energy requirements with nuclear power plants. There are 424 nuclear power reactors in the world. Therefore, there is no reason why Pakistan should be asked to desist from utilizing nuclear technology to increase electricity production, improve health care facilities, and boost agricultural production. As far as the question of rolling back the nuclear program is concerned, it is entirely a political issue, and the nuclear scientists have nothing to do with it. The Chashma nuclear power plant will start producing electricity in 1997-98. Pakistan needs several more similar nuclear power plants. If France had not refused to supply the nuclear reprocessing plant for enriching uranium, Pakistan would have been able to set up nuclear |
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