The Russian Federation is the largest country in the world; it has a surface area of 17 million km² and covers 11 time zones. It is a middle-income country with a population of nearly 143 million people and a gross national income per capita of US$ 7570 in 2007.

The Russian Federation is a republic led by President Dmitry Medvedev. It is composed of nearly 80% ethnic Russians, with Tatars, Ukrainians, Chuvash, Chechen and Armenians making up most of its remaining population. Members of the Russian Orthodox Church comprise the dominant religious group, followed by Muslims, Jews, Buddhists and other Christians.

Over the past several years the Russian Federation has sustained a dynamic growth rate, mostly owing to the income from the sale of its mineral resources, of which it has the largest share in the world. In spite of many improvements, however, the country still has significant social and economic problems. In 2008 it ranked sixty-seventh in the human development index of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

Health

Life expectancy at birth was 73.6 years for females and 60.4 years for males in 2006; the averages for the WHO European Region were 78.75 and 71.1 years, respectively.

The infant mortality rate is 9.4 deaths per 1000 live births; the average for the Region is 7.98.

The crude death rate was 16.1 per 1000 population in 2005.

HIV prevalence was 300 cases per 100 000 population in 2007; the average for the Region was 231 cases.

The tuberculosis (TB) notification rate, new cases and relapses, was 87 per 100 000 population in 2006; the average for the Region was 41.

Key public health problems

The negative trend in health is explained by the worsening socioeconomic determinants of health, in part due to a difficult transition period.

The decline in the population is a major concern and many efforts are being made to improve reproductive, maternal and child health as measures to increase the birth rate.

The incidence of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections is high. According to the Federal AIDS Centre, about 1 million people are estimated to be infected with HIV.

Registered TB cases of tuberculosis more than doubled between 1990 and 2005, rising from 34 to 83 per 100 000 population.

At the end of 2005 the President announced the establishment of national priority projects on education, health, housing and agriculture. The objectives of the health priority project are:

• to improve the population’s health status;
• to increase access to and the quality of health care;
• to strengthen primary care and health promotion and disease prevention activities; and
• to improve access to tertiary care.

The health project’s main activities are: training and retraining of primary care and emergency care physicians; purchase of equipment for primary care providers; additional immunization programme; periodic medical examination of the working population; introduction of new programmes for infant check-ups, pregnant women and childbirth, and AIDS prevention and treatment; and construction of new centres of high-technology tertiary care.