113 thousand people vaccinated against plague in Kazakhstan

After the recent lethal bubonic plague case in the neighboring Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan Healthcare Ministry has reported on advance measures taken to protect Kazakhstan people from bubonic plague, Tengrinews.kz reports. According to the Ministry’s press-service, a special attention was given to natural foci of the disease in Kazakhstan in the April 2013 anti-plague campaign. The territories of habitation of the disease carriers and transmitter were disinfestated and deratized and 113 thousand people were vaccinated against plague. According to the Ministry, Kazakhstan's medical facilities have a large enough stock of medicines, diagnostic equipment and desinfectants that they will put to use in case the situation starts deteriorating. “Kazakhstan Healthcare Ministry and Aikimbayev Kazakh Scientific Center of Quarantine and Zoogenous Infections experts are working in Zhambyl and Almaty oblasts to render practical aid and enhance the inter-authority interaction,” the press-service writes. Temirbek Issakunov, 15, died of bubonic plague in Kyrgyzstan last week, the disease was officially confirmed earlier this week. The teenager was a herder from a small mountain village of Ichke-Zhergez in eastern Kyrgyzstan, close to the border with Kazakhstan and the Issyk-Kul lake. Kazakhstan has already stepped up control at the Kyrgyzstan border, but the border has not been closed and there are no talks of closing the border. Kyrgyz Health Minister Dinara Saginbayeva said that there was no threat of a bubonic plague epidemic as the form of the disease in the teenager is not conducive to a plague epidemic. So there was no grounds for closing the borders. In the meanwhile Kyrgyzstan medial officials have hospitalized and isolated 105 people who came in contact with the deceased, including doctors and medical staff that treated the boy. The incubation period of bubonic plague makes from two to six days, the Kazakhstan Health Ministry reminded. Plague is considered a highly infectious disease. It is spread in the air, by direct contact, or by contaminated undercooked food or materials. The disease’s major symptoms include fever, lymphadenopathy in the neck, muscle and head ache. The mortality of bubonic plague is 25 percent and the death rate of its lung form is 60-70 percent. “In case of noticing the disease’s symptoms (fever, adenopathy), people should immediately arrive at a hospital to make sure their condition is timely diagnosed and their receive a medical aide,” the doctors recommended. The ministry called Kazakhstan residents to abstain from traveling to Kyrgyzstan until the threat passes.