More than twenty hospitalised with suspected anthrax in south

More than twenty people with suspected anthrax have been hospitalised in southern Kyrgyzstan over the past week, according to health officials. As of Monday, 20 residents of Aravan district in the southern Kyrgyz province of Osh have been hospitalised with suspected cutaneous form of anthrax, Artykbai Eraliev, deputy head of the Osh provincial epidemiological control department, told IRIN. "In 12 cases the diagnosis has been confirmed," Eraliev said. According to the provincial epidemiological centre, the infected people participated in the slaughtering of a sick cow and the distribution of its meat. The animal was purchased by local residents in neighbouring Uzbekistan, smuggled across the border and slaughtered without a veterinary certification, the Kyrgyz health official maintained. Several hundred people who were believed to have consumed the meat have been brought in for medical observation. Anthrax is an acute infectious disease caused by the bacterium, Bacillus anthracis. While anthrax most commonly occurs in wild and domestic quadrupeds such as cattle, sheep, goats, camels, antelopes and other herbivores, it can also occur in humans when they are exposed to the tissue of infected animals. Untreated infections may be fatal. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), sporadic cases occur in animals worldwide and there are occasional outbreaks in Central Asia. Shavkatbek Sabirov, head of the local agriculture department, told IRIN that quarantine measures had since been introduced in the district since the outbreak. Cattle markets and local meat stands had been closed, while import and export of cattle had been forbidden. Veterinary posts were set up on the main roads to check the movement of livestock. Teams of doctors and vets were checking every household in the area to monitor the situation and vaccinate livestock. Earlier this year, two cases of anthrax were registered in the district and six cases were registered last year after people were infected by meat from an animal that had grazed close to a place where infected cattle had been buried. Over the past two years, anthrax cases were registered in southern Nookat and Karakulja districts. Meanwhile, experts cite poor veterinary and sanitary control coupled with consumers’ negligence and ignorance as the root causes of the problem. As a result, over a thousand people who had consumed infected meat underwent preventive treatment in recent years, local authorities said. “God knows what kind of meat is sold round every corner, and nobody gets punished. There isn't any control,” Jusupjan Mamadaliev, an elderly Aravan district resident, complained to IRIN. In an effort to raise awareness amongst the local population, epidemiologists urge local inhabitants to be cautious and purchase quality meat instead of buying cheap cuts. The issue is aggravated by some 250 old anthrax foci in the province - places where infected animals were buried - of which only 153 have been fenced and covered with concrete in an effort to mitigate the risk. But Jura Omurzakov, a prominent infectious diseases specialist in Kyrgyzstan, told IRIN that the majority of these sites were in poor condition with broken metal fences, and accessed by local people and animals. "There is a real threat of new [anthrax] outbreaks," Omurzakov warned. To mitigate against that, health officials have called upon local authorities to take all necessary measures to ensure control over these places, while local authorities complain of a lack of funds to address it despite a real risk of an even bigger health hazard in the future.