Over 200 people infected with dysentery

More than 200 people had been infected with an acute intestinal infection in the northwestern Kazakh province of Aktobe, a government official told IRIN from the capital, Astana, on Monday. "The situation is that 261 people are now preliminary diagnosed with having an acute intestinal infection. In 60 cases the diagnosis of acute dysentery has been confirmed," Albert Askarov, deputy head of the epidemiological surveillance agency at the Kazakh health ministry, said. He cited an accident at the old Soviet-built water supply system resulting in sewage waste leaking into local drinking water supplies. According to the health ministry, some 160 inhabitants of the Kenkiyak village in the Temir district of the Aktobe province have been hospitalised starting from 16 March when the first case was registered, of whom 33 have already been discharged from the hospital, and the other 100 infected were undergoing out-patient treatment. "Some 65 percent of the infected are children," Askarov explained. The health official noted that only two patients' condition was serious, while other cases were moderate or mild in severity. "In 80 percent of the cases the disease is in mild course," he said. In an effort to mitigate the problem, currently a team of health ministry specialists coupled with local health bodies is working in the area. Supplies of bottled drinking water for local people had been organised; also, water supply system disinfection work was still underway, the Kazakh emergency agency said in a statement on Monday. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), dysentery may be simply defined as diarrhoea containing blood. Although several organisms can cause dysentery, Shigella are the most important. Shigella dysenteriae type 1 (Sd1), also known as the Shiga bacillus, is the most virulent of the four serogroups of Shigella. Approximately five to 15 percent of Sd1 cases are fatal.