Diphtheria Epidemic Sweeps Soviet States

Two thousand have died and 80,000 are ill in a diphtheria epidemic that has swept through Russia and into other parts of the former Soviet Union, a journal reports.

Science, the journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, said Friday the epidemic has moved westward from Russia over the last year and that by December there were cases in all 15 of the states of the former Soviet Union.

“It’s one vast epidemic and it’s escalating off the graph paper,” said Nick Ward of the World Health Organization.

Western health experts, the journal said, called the outbreak “an accident waiting to happen” because too few Russian children were receiving vaccinations against diphtheria. Only about 68 percent of the children have received the three-shot diphtheria vaccine series and coverage of at least 95 percent is needed to prevent an epidemic.