Numerous populationand individual-level studies confirm a strong relationship between excessive alcohol consumption and striking excess male mortality in the countries of the former USSR. Yet the complex interplay between macroand micro-level factors underlying this relationship has remained underexplored. Our analysis refers to the most recent period, and focuses on the male population aged 20...

AIM To describe cataract surgical services in 1998 in 12 eastern European countries and to identify their needs to reduce cataract blindness. METHODS All inpatient eye departments in the 12 countries received a standardised questionnaire; the data obtained were further processed at the coordinating centre in Prague. RESULTS All 458 eye departments in the region were involved. The response r...

We evaluated the incidence of childhood thyroid diseases and urinary iodine levels in Nagasaki, Japan and in Gomel, Belarus, which was greatly radio-contaminated by the Chernobyl accident, in order to obtain the comparative data of thyroid diseases between iodine-rich (Japan) and -deficient (Belarus) areas. In Nagasaki, the median level of urinary iodine, measured by ammonium persulfate digesti...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Data concerning the long-term prognosis after stroke in low-income and middle-income countries are limited. We aimed to establish survival and dependency at 5 years after a first-ever-in-a-lifetime stroke in Grodno, Belarus. METHODS All residents of Grodno with a suspected acute stroke were registered prospectively and assessed over a period of 12 months in 2001. Patien...

AIMS To estimate to what extent injury mortality rates in 6 Eastern European countries are affected by changes in population drinking during the post-war period. DATA AND METHODS The analysis included injury mortality rates and per capita alcohol consumption in Russia, Belarus, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria and the former Czechoslovakia. Total population and gender-specific models were estimated ...

The emergence and spread of drug-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis (DR-TB) are critical global health issues. Eastern Europe has some of the highest incidences of DR-TB, particularly multidrug-resistant (MDR) and extensively drug-resistant (XDR) TB. To better understand the genetic composition and evolution of MDR- and XDR-TB in the region, we sequenced and analyzed the genomes of 138 M. tub...

There is no evidence that natural radiation (cosmic radiation or from natural radioiosotopes) increases the risk for thyroid diseases. Moreover, while it has been proven that exposure to external medical radiation or to external and internal radiation by atomic bomb explosions leads to an increased risk for thyroid cancer, the medical use of radioiodine, namely diagnostic and therapeutic applic...

INTRODUCTION Smoking rates and corresponding levels of premature mortality from smoking-related diseases in the former Soviet Union (fSU) are among the highest in the world. To reduce this health burden, greater focus on smoking cessation is needed, but little is currently known about rates and characteristics of cessation in the fSU. METHODS Nationally representative household survey data fr...

We study problems of scheduling n unit-time jobs on m identical parallel machines, in which a common due window has to be assigned to all jobs. If a job is completed within the due window, then no scheduling cost incurs. Otherwise, a job-dependent earliness or tardiness cost incurs. The job completion times, the due window location and the size are integer valued decision variables. The objecti...

One hundred two Corynebacterium diphtheriae strains (93 of the gravis biotype and nine of the mitis biotype) isolated from clinical cases during the Belarus diphtheria epidemic were characterized by biotyping, toxigenicity testing by the Elek test and an indirect hemagglutination assay, phage typing, and ribotyping. The gravis biotype strains were characterized as high and medium toxin producer...