Environmental issues of children's health in the Kazakh SSR (1941–1943)

Abstract

The article discusses issues related to children's health care in the Kazakh SSR during World War II. Based on archival data the authors of the article concluded that the increase in child mortality in the early years of the war was due to the high incidence of infectious diseases such as whooping cough, diphtheria, dysentery, pneumonia, scarlet fever, measles, and others. The reasons were the shortage of the necessary number of medical institutions, their insufficient equipment and absence of qualified medical staff, untimely detection of diseases and late hospitalization, lack of quarantine boxes and certain percentage of unvaccinated children. Among other reasons there are low living standards of the population, poor sanitary conditions in some children's institutions, and nutritional problems of children. All this led to increased morbidity and mortality of children in the early period of the war.