Hepatitis on the rise in south, health officials say

Epidemiological services are seeing a steep rise in the number of acute viral hepatitis cases in southern Kyrgyzstan. In Osh alone, the country's second largest city, about 100 people have been hospitalised with hepatitis over the past month, local epidemiologists told IRIN on Tuesday. Officials at the Osh regional epidemiological control centre say that this year's hepatitis incidence rate exceeds last year's level by 50 per cent. The number of infected people is increasing in rural areas, including the Kara-Suu, Aravan and Uzgen districts, where one or two patients are hospitalised with hepatitis each day. "Hepatitis A is the most common type. Around 95 percent of patients are diagnosed with it," Adakhamjan Abdimominov, head of the infectious diseases section of Osh regional hospital, told IRIN. "The majority of infected are children of pre-school age." According to him, such a seasonal rise of hepatitis occurs every three to five years. Hepatitis means "inflammation of the liver" and the most common cause is infection with one of five viruses, called hepatitis A,B,C,D and E. All of them can cause an acute disease with symptoms lasting several weeks including yellowing of the skin and eyes (jaundice), dark urine, extreme fatigue, nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain. It can take several months to a year to feel fit again. According to official statistics, about 1,500 people became infected with various forms of hepatitis in Osh province over the past eight months. Almost 1,200 of them were children under 14. Roughly 5 percent of all those infected suffer the heavy forms of the disease - hepatitis B and hepatitis C - which are difficult to cure. According to the local epidemiological service, it takes almost US $300 to diagnose and treat one patient with hepatitis A, more than $370 for hepatitis C and about $450 on average is required for a patient with hepatitis B. The average monthly salary in Kyrgyzstan is no more than $35, while in rural areas it is even lower. Although hospital administrators assert that funds from the state budget and via the obligatory medical insurance suffice, many patients complained to IRIN that they had to buy most of the drugs themselves. Feruza, 26, contracted hepatitis B several months ago. The hospital provided cheap but less effective drugs and her parents had to buy effective but expensive medicine. "We spent almost US $1,000," Kozubai, Feruza's father, told IRIN. This sum is a lot for a local farmer, whose average monthly income does not exceed some $25. "Many families have to get into debt [to provide for their relative's treatment]," the farmer noted. In an effort to mitigate the risk, a number of centres have been established in Osh city and province to coordinate ongoing preventive measures. The regional authorities say that teams of physicians on the ground were calling on households in an effort to raise their awareness and monitor the situation. Artykbai Eraliev, deputy chief doctor of the Osh regional epidemiological control centre, emphasised the importance of taking preventive measures in the foci of the disease, adding that health officials who were involved needed support, while resources remained scanty. According to health officials, the sanitary and epidemiological services lack the necessary means - only half a ton of disinfectants remains at the regional epidemiological control centre - while virology laboratories are in dire need of reagents to detect the hepatitis virus. Meanwhile, in Kazakhstan, some 300 people have been registered with viral hepatitis over the past month in central Karaganda province. "Around 300 people have been registered in Abay town [Karaganda province] with viral hepatitis, including 250 children," a Kazakh health official told IRIN from the Kazakh capital, Astana. "The recent cases were caused by a breakdown in the city's water supply system, which is old and hasn't been repaired for 20 years. That resulted in the sucking-in of sewage and subsequent contamination of the drinking water network," the health expert explained.