Public Health: HIV rates reported in Tashkent

Several times this year I have mentioned the burden that non-collection/non-publication of public health statistics places on neighbor states attempting to wrestle with epidemics.  This is true for Central Asia in terms of at least two issues: HIV and Avian H5N1.  Both Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan have been working through big problems with medical care and HIV transmission.  It's bad, but you have to honor them for doing this in public.  Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, by virtue of long isolation, have not been as forthcoming.

Enter the World Bank, like a diplomatic superhero:

This week, the World Bank held a seminar in Uzbekistan which highlighted public health and HIV problems.  Because of this, we have an article on HIV in Uzbekistan that features some actual numbers.  Here are two relevant paragraphs:

Saidaliyev confirmed the growth of HIV\AIDS contraction in Uzbekistan (just the way it was growing throughout the world). Parenteral way accounted for 47% of all AIDS victims in Uzbekistan, [Note: parenteral means by injection] sexual for 17%, vertical (mother to newborn) for 17%, and origin of the remaining 34% cases remained unknown. There is something wrong with Saidaliyev's arithmetic, because all these figures add up to 115%. That's Uzbek statistics for you.

A 47% rate by needle sounds about right–or maybe low–part of that 34% of unknowns, no doubt.

According to the functionary, 2,203 people contracted HIV in Uzbekistan in the first nine months of 2007. Saidaliyev confirmed that nine had been infected with a subclavian catheter in Andijan this spring. Investigation was under way, he said.

This reporting, however statistically strange, needs to be encouraged and built upon and encouraged and built upon.

Further Reading:
Population Review Board's backgrounder on rising HIV rates in Central Asia/Eastern Europe, 2002
U.S. State Department Fact Sheet, also from 2002

Photo: UNICEF, fighting HIV on a person-to-person level