STDs are a major cause of concern, he said. He estimates that there are between 450,000 and 500,000 cases of syphilis in Russia, out of a population of 145 million. He said the situation was made worse by 1999 law mandating prison terms for syphilis sufferers who contracted the disease through drug use. But I don't know what the basis of their optimism is. Depression a factor Journalist Glebov said that there were psychological as well as medical reasons for the country's low birth rate.
Most people are very pessimistic.
While there was a slight increase in the birth rate this year as compared to last year, the death rate increased markedly. The Russian death rate is now 1.7 times higher than the birth rate. Male life expectancy in Russia is 59 years,considerably lower than it was in the Soviet Union. For women, it is 72 years. The 1999 United Nations Human Development Report, which ranks countries according to quality of life, placed Russia 72nd of 174 countries surveyed.