Nearly 35 million cases of infectious diseases are registered in Russia yearly, with children accounting for up to 80% of such cases, Yuri Lobzin, director of the research and clinical center for children’s infectious diseases of the Russian Medical Biological Agency, said on Friday, TASS informs.
“Infections are a permanent threat to biological security. Nearly 35 million cases of infectious diseases have been registered in Russia every year, with up to 8- percent of them being among children. Notably, not only the number of infectious cases is what matter but also the fact that communicable diseases are triggers for corporal and oncological pathologies,” he said. “The well-known flu virus can trigger heart attacks, cerebrovascular disturbances. The chickenpox virus can do harm to vascular endothelium and trigger arterial sclerotic diseases. The herpes virus may cause psychic disorders, the hepatitis B and human papilloma viruses may trigger oncological diseases. Bacterial agents may cause respiratory organ diseases, including acute pneumonia and chronic diseases of lower respiratory airways.”
According to Lobzin, infections are causes of deaths in some 35% of cases. “The factor of infections is a an important one in terms of the demographic problem. <…> Community-acquired pneumonias account for 35% of deaths among children, meningococcosis accounts for 25%, and flu – for nearly nine percent of such deaths,” he said.
Economic losses from infections that can be prevented by means of vaccination stood at 16.5 billion rubles (216.81 million US dollars) in 2017, with losses from pneumococcal, haemophilus, and rotavirus infections and the human papilloma virus not included in the statistics, the expert added.
