CHECHNYA LINKS LIBRARY

Outbreak of epidemic in Chechnya

By Lecha Sadayev

CHECHNYA - During this past week some 65 children have been hospitalized with symptoms of the bacterial disease Leptospirosis.

According to the chief doctor at a hospital in Gudermes, Idris Baysultanov, this dangerous disease is normally transmitted to people from animals. Outbreaks of leptospirosis are usually caused by exposure to water contaminated with the urine of infected animals. In this instance, the children, from the Gudermessky and Kurchaloysky districts, apparently caught the disease by swimming in the contaminated Michig river.

The doctors have undertaken emergency measures to isolate the source, and stem the spread, of the epidemic. Baysultanov said groups of medical experts are operating in many areas. In Iliskhan-Yurt, specialists have tested more than 100 children, some of whom were infected.

The government press office announced that samples of water from the affected river have been sent to Dagestan to be analyzed by experts. This will confirm whether the river is in fact the underlying cause of the epidemic.

(MG/E,T,B)