Two suspected anthrax cases hospitalised

Two people suspected of having contracted the cutaneous form of anthrax have been recently hospitalised in the Barpy village of the southwestern province of Jalal-Abad. "These people took part in slaughtering a cow. The meat of an infected animal was further sent to a sausage shop without any veterinary certificate, while some other edible parts were distributed among relatives, and entrails buried," Tatiana Samsonova, the acting deputy director at the Kyrgyz health ministry's centre for quarantine and dangerous infectious diseases, told IRIN on Friday. In total, 46 people, including 16 children, were said to have consumed the infected meat. This recent incident has indicated the likelihood that the disease is on the rise, causing concerns for health officials. "Unfortunately, the cases of the disease among the population have become more frequent," Samsonova noted, adding that in the past months of the year, the total number of registered anthrax cases had reached 18 - all of them in the south. Eight people suspected of having contracted anthrax had been hospitalised in the provinces of Osh and Batken earlier in September. Samsonova said health specialists were taking the necessary measures to tackle the issue on the ground. An action centre established in the region and a group of health officials had been charged with addressing the issue and, as a result of their activities, the sausage shop had been closed, and health staff were calling on households to conduct prophylactic activities among the local population, and vaccinating animals against the disease. The situation in terms of potential anthrax incidents is exacerbated by numerous - more than 1,200 in all - sites of old outbreaks, which had been left unattended. Kyrgyz epidemiologists complain that these sites had been neither covered with concrete nor fenced. Moreover, annual disinfections of the sites were no longer effected, apparently due to a lack of resources. However, according to health officials, the worst aspect was that some of these sites, which can retain the infection in the soil for centuries, thereby posing a constant health threat, were being used while they were still capable of infecting domestic animals eating the grass growing there. There were a number of such sites in the northern Chuy Province, and even one in the vicinity of the capital, Bishkek. Anthrax is an acute infectious disease caused by the bacterium, Bacillus anthracis. Anthrax most commonly occurs in wild and domestic quadrupeds such as cattle, sheep, goats, camels, antelopes, and other herbivores, but can also occur in humans when they are exposed to tissue from infected animals. Untreated infections may be fatal. According to the World Health Organisation, sporadic cases occur in animals worldwide and there are occasional outbreaks in Central Asia.