5,000 Cases Tipped for Diphtheria

A Moscow health official predicted Monday that the number of diphtheria cases in the capital is likely to double to 5,000 this year, while the World Health Organization noted a resurgence of tuberculosis in the former Soviet bloc.Irina Lytkina, head of the epidemic department of Moscow's health inspectorate, said the number of diphtheria cases in Moscow was close to 1,500, of which 72 had died. More than 300 of those infected, and eight of the dead, were children, she said.As most cases are reported in September and October, after Muscovites return from their summer vacations and send their children back to school, the total number this year could come to twice as many as the 2,544 cases reported in 1993, Lytkina said.Lytkina said tuberculosis was likely to spread as well. Outbreaks of the disease among children doubled in 1993. Reuters cited a WHO report as saying that 29,000 people died of tuberculosis in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in 1993. In the West, tuberculosis has an almost negligible affect with 1.5 deaths per 100,000 people. The WHO report blamed the rise on deteriorating health care and social conditions.In Moscow, 1,085 TB cases have been reported since January, up only slightly from the same period last year, but Lytkina said she believed the number would rise sharply by the end of the year and that there was already a much sharper rise in serious cases.Diphtheria, a bacterial infection that affects mucous membranes, caused a scare last year when the number of cases tripled, causing the city to launch a large-scale immunization program. About 57 percent of adults and nearly 98 percent of children have been vaccinated, but among babies, a high-risk group, the rate is only 50 percent, Lytkina said. Last year, before the scare, only just over a quarter of the population had been vaccinated.Diphtheria, which, like influenza, is carried by droplets in the air, can hit healthy adults if they have not been vaccinated, although many of the victims are from vulnerable groups, such as alcoholics and the homeless.TB is relatively common among prisoners, alcoholics and the homeless, but cases among children of infected people were up most sharply because the city does not own enough apartments to isolate patients, Lytkina said.