In the former Soviet Union, as it began to fall apart in the early 1990s, there were great unrest and population dislocations. Suddenly, the incidence of diphtheria began to rise to alarming...

In the former Soviet Union, as it began to fall apart in the early 1990s, there were great unrest and population dislocations. Suddenly, the incidence of diphtheria began to rise to alarming proportions. This might be understandable if all the cases were in young children who might have fallen through the cracks of a compromised health system (which had actually been of high quality, at least in some areas, during earlier days), but many of the cases were in adults. It is still not clear what happened, but speculate on how the diphtheria vaccination program in the Soviet Union might have failed.