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Chechens face

new enemy in

polio outbreak

GROZNY: After months of war against Russia's massive military machine, Chechnya is now battling another deadly enemy as an outbreak of polio grips the region.

"Since July we have had more than 70 cases", said Nazara Khakimova, chief of the infectious diseases ward at the main Number 9 Hospital in the regional capital Grozny.

"Unfortunately I expect it to spread. The children are suffering greatly from it."

Once a scourge which left countless people paralysed or dead, the disease is all but extinct in the developed world.

But the near destruction of Chechnya's health care system coupled with unsanitary conditions -- most of Grozny still lacks running water half a year after Russian troops captured the city -- has left its youngest people vulnerable.

Khakimova said that after the region's declaration of independence in 1991 its health care system began to decline.

Russia, whose effort to keep Chechnya in its grasp has cost thousands of lives and trillions of roubles, has shown limited interest in providing special help for the sick children.-Reuter