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- MINSK (Reuters) - Post-Soviet
Belarus has been plunged into a demographic disaster, with soaring levels
of infertility and genetic changes 14 years after the Chernobyl disaster
in neighbouring Ukraine, doctors said yesterday.
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- "Science cannot yet assess the consequences of the
Chernobyl accident, but it is plain that a demographic catastrophe has
occurred in Belarus," Vladislav Ostapenko, head of Belarus's radiation
medicine institute, told a news conference. "It is clear that we are
seeing genetic changes, especially among those who were less than six years
of age when subjected to radiation. These people are now starting families."
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- Belarus, a country of 10 million downwind from Chernobyl,
bore the brunt of the April 26, 1986 explosion and fire in the power station's
fourth reactor.
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- One quarter of its territory was subjected to severe
contamination and tens of thousands of people were evacuated from their
homes. Radiation from Chernobyl spread throughout most of Europe, but Belarus,
Ukraine and Russia were worst hit and still devote huge resources to cleanup
operations.
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- Ostapenko said that within seven years of the accident,
mortality rates were outstripping birth rates.
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- Girls in affected areas had five times the normal rate
of deformations in their reproductive systems and boys three times the
norm. Each year, 2,500 births were recorded with genetic abnormalities
and 500 pregnancies were terminated after testing.
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- Thousands of cases of thyroid cancer, rare in areas not
subject to high radiation levels, have been recorded in Belarus's "risk
zone", where a million people still live. High levels have now been
observed among teenagers.
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- "We are seeing problems of infertility in this generation,"
he said. "Exactly the sort of observations we saw in animals subjected
to similar radiation."
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- Belarus, Ostapenko said, needed more outside help to
cope with the consequences. "It is impossible to say whether we are
over the peak of the consequences of radioactive contamination or whether
we are just on the threshold."
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- Gennady Lazyuk, head of a state institute for hereditary
diseases, said the aftermath of the accident was compounded by ills associated
with post-Soviet hardship.
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- "Of course this is a complex problem and includes
low living standards, alcoholism and poor nutrition," he said. "Regardless,
in contaminated areas the growth rate in genetic abnormalities is more
than twice as high as in uncontaminated areas."
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