Central Asia Sees Dangerous Uptick in Tropical Disease

Researchers are warning that Central Asia’s post-Soviet decay has provided a fertile breeding ground for a group of dangerous tropical diseases. The region’s economic breakdown and falling healthcare standards have contributed to the reemergence of diseases that had been eradicated or were controlled when the countries were part of the Soviet Union. The diseases, such as malaria, hurt the region’s economy, the authors warn in “Central Asia's Hidden Burden of Neglected Tropical Diseases.”

NTDs “are a group of 17 parasitic and bacterial infections that are the most common afflictions of the world's poorest people. They blind, disable and disfigure their victims, trapping them in a cycle of poverty and disease,” says a press release from the Public Library of Science, which published the study. 

Authors Peter Hotez, president of the Sabin Vaccine Institute in Washington, DC, and Ken Alibek of Nazarbayev University in Astana, who published their report September 27, write that “among their common features, the NTDs result in prolonged periods of disability and actually help to promote poverty through their long-standing effects on child development and worker productivity. It is not commonly appreciated that the NTDs are widespread throughout Central Asia where they are also a major determinant of poverty.”  

The diseases include “soil-transmitted helminth infections, food-borne and zoonotic parasitic infections, and vector-borne protozoan infections.” Some of the infections spread through meat, which is no longer regulated by mechanized slaughterhouses, since the demise of the Soviet state left “livestock production in the hands of small farms and unsupervised homes, and largely without veterinary inspection.” 

The full report can be found here.