The rapid fluctuations in mortality in Russia since the mid-1980s caution against attempts at prediction. However life expectancy has continued to fall steadily since the 1998 currency crisis and, on the basis of preliminary data from more recent years, shows no sign of recovery. Furthermore new threats are emerging, in the form of infectious and parasitic diseases, including sexually transmitted diseases, and in particular AIDS, whose incidence has been growing exponentially since the latter half of the 1990s.