DUSHANBE, June 20, Asia-Plus — Over the past month, 5-6 cases of hemorrhagic fever have been registered in Tajikistan, Asia-Plus has learned from Navrouz Jaffarov, a chief specialist with the sanitary-epidemiological department of the Ministry of Health (MoH).
According to him, the hemorrhagic fever cases have been registered in Rudaki, Tursunzoda, Fayzobod, Temourmalik, Vose and Danghara districts. “Unfortunately, one fatal case has been registered over the report period,” said Jaffarov, “On May 14, one resident of the Rudaki district died of the disease.”
Jaffarov added that 12 cases of hemorrhagic fever were officially registered in Tajikistan last year. There were also fatal cases, but Jaffarov did not say who many people died of the disease in 2006.
In the meantime, Samariddin Aliyev, the director of Tajikistan’s Center for State Sanitary-Epidemiological Supervision, noted that only three cases of hemorrhagic fever have been registered in the country over the first five months of the year, and one person died of the disease over the same five-month period.
According to Jaffarov, to prevent spread of the disease medical workers are currently carrying out explanatory work to raise the hemorrhagic fever awareness among the population and veterinary services are treating farm animals. Meanwhile, Aliyev noted that because of shortage of funds this work is done not in all regions.
Viral hemorrhagic fevers (VHFs) are a group of illnesses that are caused by several distinct families of viruses: Arenavirus, Filoviridae, Bunyaviridae and Flavivirus. Some of these cause relatively mild illnesses, whilst others can cause severe, life-threatening disease. Examples include Lassa fever, Marburg virus, Ebola virus, Bolivian hemorrhagic fever, Hantaviruses (Korean hemorrhagic fever), Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever and Dengue hemorrhagic fever.
Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF) is a widespread tick-borne viral disease, a zoonosis of domestic animals and wild animals, that may affect humans. Clinical disease is rare in infected mammals, but commonly severe in infected humans, with a 30 percent mortality rate. Outbreaks of illness are usually attributable to handling infected animals or people.
Sporadic infection of people is usually caused by Hyalomma tick bite. Clusters of illness typically appear after people treat, butcher or eat infected livestock.
Ticks carry the virus to domestic animal stock. Sheep, goats and cattle develop high titers of virus in blood, but tend not to fall ill. Where mammal and tick infection is common agricultural regulations require de-ticking farm animals before transportation or delivery for slaughter. Personal tick avoidance measures are recommended, such as use of insect repellents
, adequate clothing and body inspection for adherent ticks.
