In 1991 the infant mortality rate was estimated at about nine deaths per 1,000 live births, an improvement from the 1987 figure of eleven and from the 1960 figure of forty. New specialized facilities outside Athens and Thessaloniki were responsible for a significant improvement in neonatal care in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

In 1992 the death rate in Greece was nine per 1,000 persons. The major causes of death, in order of incidence, are heart disease, malignant tumors, cerebrovascular disorders, accidents, and respiratory diseases. Through November 1991, there were 52.8 cases of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) reported per 1 million population, the lowest rate in Europe. By mid-1994, some 916 cases were reported. Of that group, 11 percent contracted AIDS through medical procedures, 5 percent were identified as drug users, and 52 percent were homosexual or bisexual. In mid-1993 the Center for Control of Special Infections, center for AIDS research in Greece, estimated that 10,000 to 15,000 people in the country were carrying the AIDS-related human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), and that the 9,000 to 13,500 new cases of AIDS expected in the following seven years would place a serious burden on the national health system.

According to a 1994 report, the proportion of drug users in the Greek population doubled in the previous decade. The most frequently used drug is marijuana. Drug use increased most significantly among women and members of the lower class. According to a 1993 survey in Thessaloniki lycea, about 10 percent of students between ages fifteen and seventeen had experimented with a narcotic; the most prevalent substance was marijuana. A 1991 report indicated that over half the people detained in prison were taking drugs in prison. The number of drug-related deaths in Greece remained stable in the early 1990s, between sixty-six and seventynine per year (see The Narcotics Sales , ch. 5).

In the same decade, tobacco and alcohol use declined, although the proportion of the population using alcohol remained quite high, and about half the adult population, regardless of class, smoked daily. The group with the highest proportion of smokers was males between ages twenty-five and thirty-five.

The major infectious diseases are influenza, pulmonary tuberculosis (resurgent since the mid-1980s), viral and infectious hepatitis, intestinal infections, and chicken pox. Isolated cases of malaria were reported in the early 1990s.

Data as of December 1994

NOTE: The information regarding Greece on this page is re-published from The Library of Congress Country Studies and the CIA World Factbook. No claims are made regarding the accuracy of Greece Health Conditions information contained here. All suggestions for corrections of any errors about Greece Health Conditions should be addressed to the Library of Congress and the CIA.