Bruce Pannier
rferl.org
05/29/2010
The reemergence of an old disease in Tajikistan has led to an outbreak of a “polio war” between Moscow and Dushanbe.
The dispute erupted after news emerged in April that the viral disease, which primarily spreads in areas with poor sanitation and can cause paralysis within hours of contraction, had returned to Tajikistan in a big way.
Two deaths resulting from polio have been confirmed in the Central Asian country, although Russian officials have placed the number as high as 15. Some 104 cases of wild poliovirus have been confirmed, and nearly 440 cases of acute flaccid paralysis, the most common sign of polio, have been recorded.
In Russia, where hundreds of thousands of Tajik migrant workers trek for seasonal work, suspected cases have appeared among young children of Tajik migrant laborers in hospitals in Moscow and thousands of kilometers away in Angarsk, Irkutsk Region. These illnesses have led officials to introduce a number of measures to prevent the disease from spreading.
Tajik children less than six years of age, the most likely group to contract the virus, have been barred from entering the country and testing at border points has begun. In another move that threatens to further damage Tajikistan’s already battered economy, imports of dried fruit were banned by Moscow.
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