Rabies remains endemic in south

Rabies is increasingly becoming a serious health concern in southern Kyrgyzstan, where over the past two months alone three people have died of the disease. The situation with regard to rabies cases is exacerbated by the deteriorating epidemiological situation in the region coupled with a lack of proper veterinary control, Jura Umurzakov, a prominent infectious diseases specialist in the country, told IRIN in Osh, Kyrgyzstan's second largest city. His comments followed the recent deaths of a 14-year-old girl, a 54-year-old man and an elderly woman of 70, residents of the small southern town of Kyzyl-Kiya, the Aravan district and the region's largest city, Osh, respectively. The root cause of the fatalities was the patients' failure to seek medical assistance in time, Makhmud Abduvaliev, deputy chief doctor of Osh, told IRIN, claiming that they had sufficient anti-rabies vaccine in the region. According to the Kyrgyz centre of quarantine and contagious diseases, the government spends more than US $120,000 from the state budget a year to purchase vaccines. “But these means are not enough to satisfy the growing needs,” Jalalitdin Gaibulin, the director of the centre, told IRIN. Some officials at the centre said that on average 11,000-12,000 people bitten by animals were applying annually for anti-rabies treatment in the country, with that figure tending to grow every year. Dozens of rabies cases among animals are officially registered in Kyrgyzstan almost every year, while in 2003 alone, 50 cases were registered. However, in the first six months of 2004, that figure rose to 33. Health officials cited livestock not being properly vaccinated against the dangerous disease as one of the main causes of the ongoing prevalence of the disease. "Preventive inoculation [of animals] is the only way of protection against rabies. Owners of domestic animals refer to a shortage of money but it should be pointed out that neglect from their side is the issue," they said. Meanwhile, veterinaries complain of a lack of financing for their sector, subsequently affecting their work. According to the Centre of Social Information and Forecasting, an NGO based in Osh, all cities and villages in the region lack preventive inspection of domestic animals and management of stray dogs In rural areas, barns are not cleaned properly with chemicals and rubbish is not removed in urban areas due to a lack of funds, officials say. “As a result, packs of rats and mice increase every day,” Erkin Sabirov, head of one of the district committees in Osh, said. “And the local authorities do not provide resources for the elimination of these pests.” Officials at the Osh disinfections station told IRIN that $10,000 would be enough for the sanitary clean-up of city cemeteries and landfills - where rabies-carrying animals tend to congregate. Station staff have prepared a project to eliminate rabies in the region, but haven't been able to find any donors so far. Given the scarcity of means, the station is limited to eliminating rodents at nurseries, boarding schools and homes for people with disabilities.