CHECHNYA LINKS LIBRARY

One-fifth of all newborn Chechen children have serious health problems

By Lecha Sadayev

CHECHNYA - Despite there being no demographic crisis in the foreseeable future, doctors are sounding the alarm now by stating that there is a high percentage of illness among newborn babies.

"One-fifth of all babies are born with serious pathologies [anatomic or functional manifestations of a disease]," said the republic’s deputy health minister Sultan Alimkhadzhiyev.

According to him, this is directly related to the two wars in Chechnya. He mentioned social problems, environmental pollution and long-term stress-inducing factors, all of which have been aggravated during the past few years.

As for discovering and treating pathologies of pregnant women, he said the situation is complicated by the country’s slow rate of restoring health services, especially in prenatal clinics where preventable diseases could be detected in mothers-to-be.

In Grozny, the situation concerning diseases of mothers and babies is catastrophic. According to Zargan Mutsayeva, chief doctor in the city’s main maternity hospital, the figure of 1 sick child out of 5, which is true for the entire country, is 1 child out of 2 in the capital. “To be more exact, it’s just over half.”

"Of the 2,173 births in the first half of 2005, 1,104 had serious pathologies. Even worse however, were the deaths of 51 fetuses,“ the doctor added.

(MG/E,T)