Eight haemorrhagic fever cases hospitalised

Eight residents in districts of Western Kazakhstan Province bordering on Russia have been hospitalised over the last two months having been diagnosed as suffering from haemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS). "We have eight cases in November and December. The districts where these cases have been registered are part of an extension of the disease's natural breeding ground in the border districts of the Russian Federation," Albert Askarov, the head of the Kazakh health ministry's epidemiological inspection department, told IRIN from the capital, Astana, on Tuesday. He also noted that there had been an increase in the rodent population in the region this year, this being the main factor responsible for local people being infected. Askarov said comprehensive epidemiological measures were being taken, including elimination of rodents, the carriers of the disease, and all the patients were undergoing treatment. "There has been a total elimination of rats in those four settlements where the cases of the disease were registered, and all those having been in contact with the patients are under medical observation," he added. "The situation is under control," Askarov stressed, adding that previous incidences of the disease had last been registered in Kazakhstan in 2000. He observed that even if his department had taken all the necessary steps, isolated incidences of the disease might continue to occur as it was impossible to completely eliminate all the rodents in the region. Earlier this year, the Russian Federation media reported a sharp increase in the incidence of HFRS in Bashkortostan, a region not far from Western Kazakhstan Province. According to the report, citing the Bashkortostan epidemiological inspection centre, the number of cases had reached 1,000, which was 26 times the figure in 1998. Some sources also noted that 60 percent of overall cases of the disease in Russia had occurred in Bashkortostan. The situation was also a source of concern in neighbouring Orenburg Province, which borders on Western Kazakhstan, where local emergency situations officials reportedly said that the incidence of the disease this year was double that of last year's, caused by the seasonal activities of the rodents which transmitted it. According to the World Health Organisation, the viruses which cause HFRS are maintained in nature by field rodents, and infections of humans are thought to occur as the result of coming into contact with the excreta of rodent carriers.