Under the Skin: Russia’s Budding Healthcare Crisis

Abstract

Behind the ghost of the Iron Curtain lurks a public health crisis. Superseded in the media by East-West tension and military flare-ups, infectious disease has launched its own war on the Russian Federation. Besides the HIV epidemic, which has continued to escalate for decades, the Russian Federation has become a greenhouse for multidrug resistant tuberculosis (MDR TB). This problem is not just a problem of the Russian Federation, but has worldwide significance due to the spread of resistant TB. Furthermore, the issue has not received the attention it deserves from the international media or the Russian government.  MDR-TB in Russia needs to be taken more seriously