DUSHANBE, September 15, 2010, Asia-Plus — Said Davlatov, the head of the sanitary and epidemiological directorate within the Ministry of Health (MoH) of Tajikistan, has denied a statement by Russian chief sanitary inspection about growth in polio incidence rate in Tajikistan as “baseless.”
We will recall that Russia’s chief sanitary inspector Gennady Onishchenko told RIA Novosti on September 13 that growth in polio incidence rate poses threat to Russia. He said the problem was clearly quite serious, given a great number of Tajik nationals working in Russia.
According to Onishchenko, this year Tajikistan accounts for 65% of diagnosed polio cases the world over. He added that 20 people have died of polio in Tajikistan this year and every fifth lethal polio case is a child under the age of one year old. In all, 456 polio cases have been registered in Tajikistan. 12 polio cases have been registered in Russia since early this year, Onishchenko said.
“In this situation, it is hard to understand the position of Tajikistan, which has not yet replied to our suggestion to send Russian specialists there to inspect how Tajik specialists, trained by us, are working and how the equipment is used,” the Russian chief sanitary inspector noted.
In the meantime, Mr. Davlatov says the data cited by Onishchenko were reported as of June 1 already. “Moreover, there were only two lethal olio cases,” he stressed, noting that no new case of polio has been registered in Tajikistan since June 1.
On the allegation that Tajik authorities impede arrival of Russian specialists in Tajikistan, Davlatov noted that Russian medical specialists were in Tajikistan in August and they advised their Tajik colleagues not only on polio but also on other infectious and tropical diseases,” noted Tajik health official. “In October, 14 our specialists will go to Moscow to take training course and they will bring the equipment for laboratory service with them.”
