Anthrax and haemorrhagic fever cases confirmed

Seven people in the north of the country have been hospitalised with anthrax contracted from infected cattle, while in the south three cases of Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever have been confirmed. "The situation is that seven people have been hospitalised with confirmed anthrax," Albert Askarov, deputy head of the sanitary and epidemiological control committee, told IRIN from the Kazakh capital, Astana, on Tuesday. His comments followed earlier reports by the Kazakh Emergency Ministry that a local resident in Mugalzhar district, in northwestern Aktobe province, was hospitalised on suspicion of contracting anthrax. "That patient was hospitalised on 30 June, while the others were detected when health workers began screening people with whom the hospitalised patient had been in contact," Askarov added. The hospitalised patients took part in slaughtering a calf that had died of a mysterious disease, with some of them reportedly selling the meat. "The calf had blood running out of its nose and they slaughtered it without notifying the veterinary service and getting a sanitary certificate," he explained. "They [patients] are all now in the infectious diseases unit of the Emba town hospital in Aktobe province undergoing treatment under the surveillance of health personnel. We think that there won't be any new cases as the incubation period [for fresh cases] is past," Askarov noted. "All the necessary measures have been taken and a team of experts, including Health Ministry specialists, did their work on the ground. The patients' condition is now good as they have a mild form of anthrax," he said. The recent incident brought the number of anthrax cases in Central Asia's largest state to 11 in the first six months of the year, while in the same period of 2003 there were none. Askarov cited a lack of veterinary control as the root cause of the problem. "There need to be veterinary measures, including the vaccination of animals and proper veterinary controls, as all the cases were caused by infected cattle. Unless this is ensured, people will continue to be infected as the disease is contracted only from animals," the health official explained. He also emphasised the importance of tighter measures to prevent people from slaughtering infected animals. Meanwhile, three cases of Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever (CCHF) have been officially registered in the south over the past week. "Three [southern] Kazakh provinces, including Southern Kazakhstan, Zhambyl and Kzyl-Orda are a natural foci for CCHF. Every year dozens of cases are registered there. This year only three cases have been officially registered in these three provinces as we carried out prophylactic measures before the epidemic period to eliminate ticks - vectors of the disease. Within three weeks the epidemic period will be over and then ticks will disappear," Askarov said. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), CCHF is a viral haemorrhagic fever of the Nairovirus group. It is endemic in many countries in Africa, Europe and Asia. It was first reported in the Crimea in 1944 and given the name Crimean haemorrhagic fever. In 1969 it was recognized that the pathogen causing Crimean haemorrhagic fever was the same as that responsible for an illness identified in 1956 in the Congo, and so linkage of the two places resulted in the current name. CCHF is a severe illness in humans, with a high mortality rate. Fortunately, it only occurs infrequently in humans, although infection in animals may be more common.