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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Uzbekistan
Index
According to experts, the most immediate impact of the environmental
situation in Uzbekistan is on the health condition of the population (see
Environmental Problems, this ch.). Although it is difficult to establish a
direct cause and effect between environmental problems and their apparent
consequences, the cumulative impact of these environmental problems in
Uzbekistan appears to have been devastating. Frequently cited in
Uzbekistan's press are increasing occurrences of typhoid, paratyphoid, and
hepatitis from contaminated drinking water; rising rates of intestinal
disease and cancers; and increased frequency of anemia, dystrophy,
cholera, dysentery, and a host of other illnesses. One Russian specialist
includes among the ailments "lag in physical development,"
especially among children. According to this observer, sixty-nine of every
100 adults in the Aral Sea region are deemed to be "incurably ill."
In 1990 life expectancy for males in all of Uzbekistan was sixty-four
years, and for females, seventy years. The average life span in some
villages near the Aral Sea in Karakalpakstan, however, is estimated at
thirty-eight years.
In the early 1990s, only an estimated 30 percent of women in Uzbekistan
practiced contraception of any kind. The most frequently used method was
the intrauterine device, distribution of which began in a government
program introduced in 1991. In 1991 the average fertility rate was 4.1
children per woman, but about 200,000 of the women in the childbearing age
range have ten or more children.
Infant mortality increased by as much as 49 percent between 1970 and
1986 to an average of 46.2 deaths per 1,000 live births. In 1990 the
average rate of mortality before age one for the entire country was
sixty-five deaths per 1,000 live births. In the mid-1990s, official data
estimated the level of infant mortality in parts of Karakalpakstan at 110
per 1,000 live births; unofficial estimates put the level at twice that
figure. In 1992 the national maternal mortality rate was 65.3 per 100,000
live births, with considerably higher rates in some regions.
According to the WHO, Uzbekistan reported one case of acquired immune
deficiency syndrome (AIDS) in 1992, one in 1993, and none in 1994. No
treatment centers or AIDS research projects are known to exist in
Uzbekistan.
Data as of March 1996
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