Cholera outbreak in Uzbekistan

Cholera bacteria

Cholera outbreak in Uzbekistan. Is it for real or it's just another rumor?
The government denyes the Cholera epidemy. But may that cost the health of their nation?


Uznews - Through its media service, Jahon, the Uzbek foreign ministry appears to be denying claims that Uzbekistan is experiencing an outbreak of cholera. The ministry of health in Uzbekistan and the state epidemiological surveillance unit are also refuting reports of a cholera outbreak and are doing nothing to prevent the spread of the disease.


“If we announce a cholera diagnosis, then we immediately have to organise quarantine, and nobody wants that” said one doctor in the Tinchlik village hospital in Yangiyul district, Tashkent. "Quarantine", he says, "means that villages and towns where cholera has been identified have to be ‘shut down’, and clean drinking water has to be supplied, which is an extremely costly operation for the district authorities, especially in villages like Tinchlik."


Hardly surprising to find cholera.


“We haven’t had clean water for 20 years. The old water pipes have crumbled but nobody has ever replaced them” said Akramkhodzh Mukhiddinov, member of the Human Rights Alliance of Uzbekistan (PAU) and also a resident of Tinchlik. 


Mukhiddinov claims that many people who have their own transport bring drinking water from Yangiyul or Tashkent, but most people take water from waterways running through the area.


“People take water from the irrigation channels, then boil it and drink it. There is no alternative when there is no clean mains water” says Mukhiddinov. He claims that people most at risk of contracting cholera are those who take water from the Boz-Su river. “A 45-year-old man, who drank water from this river, died recently in our village” Mukhiddinov says.


The human rights campaigner believes that, given the living conditions in Tinchlik and its neighbouring settlements, it would be amazing if an outbreak of cholera did not happen here.


Health ministry denies the outbreak.


Meanwhile, Uzbekistan’s health ministry and foreign affairs ministry are categorically denying reports of a cholera outbreak.


“When you present them with concrete facts about people dying from an illness, the symptoms of which are extremely similar to those of cholera, ministry of health civil servants don’t respond, claiming that they have heard of no such instances.” One Tashkent journalist remarked.


Uzbekistan’s state epidemiological service also denies the outbreak of cholera.


“We are currently running a campaign to vaccinate children against measles and German measles, but have heard nothing about cholera. If there were cases, we would have made statements about this” said one employee of the state epidemiological surveillance service in Chilanzar district, Tashkent.


“The symptoms of cholera – vomiting and diarrhoea – are similar to those of other intestinal illnesses, and it is possible that people are mistaken about what is actually wrong” an employee of the epidemiological surveillance unit speculated. When asked about cholera, the source asked us not to use his name.

Uzbekistan flag

So, what is really happening in Uzbekistan?


Despite official denials, many doctors are saying confidentially that there are cases of cholera now in Uzbekistan. They do not hide the fact that people have died from an intestinal illness, the name of which doctors will not spell out to their relatives.


“I am convinced my husband died of cholera after he swam in the Boz-Su river” says Mukhabbat, a 30-year-old Tashkent resident.


The outbreak of cholera would appear to be confirmed, at least, by events in Yangiyul district and in Yangiyul hospital, where, in mid-August, dozens of people arrived each day with symptoms of this disease – not only vomiting and diarrhoea but also severe dehydration. Previously, the Almazarsk district of Tashkent had experienced cholera-like illness, also linked to water from the Boz-Su river.


“It is very easy to explain why information about a cholera outbreak is being hushed up, and you can see this in the text of the foreign ministry’s statement” said one Tashkent doctor, who also asked to not to be named.


“As a member of the World Health Organisation, Uzbekistan has to update the European regional office of this body round-the-clock, but if it did inform WHO about these circumstances, WHO would send out a special commission which would see for itself the terrible living conditions of those people who have contracted cholera” he said.


“Will our government allow that to happen?” an Uznews source asks, adding that as winter approaches, the cholera bacteria will become less active, and the cover-up may therefore outlast the outbreak.

Woman Born With Half a Brain is Living a Full Life.

Michelle Mack has turned medical thinking upside down.

The right side of Michelle Mack's brain rewired itself to take over functions controlled by the left.

Born with only half a brain, Mack can speak normally, graduated from high school and has an uncanny knack for dates.

At 27, doctors determined that the right side of her brain had essentially rewired itself to make up for function that was likely lost during pre-birth stroke. But her childhood and young adult years were fraught with frustration.

"It was very hard for me" Mack said. "It was very hard for me growing up. No one knew the truth about my brain."

Mack's parents, Carol and Wally, realized shortly after her birth that something was wrong.

"There wasn't a group to turn to" said Carol Mack. "Michelle didn't have cerebral palsy, I knew that. She didn't have Down's syndrome, I knew that. I had no place to turn."

Ten years ago, Dr. Jordan Grafman, chief of the Cognitive Neuroscience Section at the National Institutes of Health, finally diagnosed the problem.

An MRI scan revealed she was missing nearly half of the left side of her brain. While it was clear Mack has some problems, Grafman said he and the family were shocked by the extent of the damage.

"We were surprised to see the extent of the lesion in her brain, which basically took away the left side of her brain" said Grafman. "There's some very deep structures remaining, but the surface of her brain, the cortex is 95 percent gone and some of the deeper structures, structures that control movement, are missing. These are all structures that are important for movement, behavior, cognition."

The only answer, Grafman said, was that Mack's brain has rewired itself. The remaining half took over some of the essential functions that are normally done by the left, such as speaking and reading. That rewiring, however, came at a cost.

"Michelle has fairly normal language abilities, certainly basic language abilities, she can construct a sentence, she can understand instructions, she can find words when she's talking, but actually she has some trouble in some aspects of visual-spatial processing" said Grafman.

"It's quite possible that in her learning, in her development, when the right hemisphere either took over or developed some of the language abilities that it cost her in some of the skills that are normally mediated by the right side of the brain" added Grafman.

In the 10 years since Grafman first diagnosed Mack, she has seen some intellectual functions improve, the doctor said. Recovery has not been perfect, however. Mack still struggles with abstract concepts and becomes easily lost in unfamiliar surroundings.

The diagnosis explained why Mack had experienced a lifetime of difficulty controlling her emotions.

"He's helped us understand the reason why I tend to throw fits, temper tantrums" she said. "It was because I was missing half my brain."

Mack will always have some problems, but dad Wally Mack said that Grafman's diagnosis and treatment answered a lot of questions and gave him hope.

"Dr. Grafman explained that the right hemisphere is taking over, and it might take her a little while longer to get there with all the rewiring that has to take place" he said. "But that told us all these bad days are behind us and there are nothing but good days ahead."

Michelle Mack is now 37 and lives with her mother and father. She works from home doing data entry for her church. She is fairly independent, pays rent and can do most household chores. She realizes she'll need help for the rest of her life but wanted to tell her story to make it clear that she is not helpless.

"I wanted to do this so people like producers, photographers and security guards and police officers learn about people like me" she said, "that I'm normal but have special needs, and that there are a lot people like me, so that they could be more understanding."