Tag Archives: health

Soviet monkey colony bristles with life in Georgian region

SUKHUMI/Georgia, JULY 16 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — The hilltops surrounding Sukhumi, the capital of the Georgian breakaway region of Abkhazia, holds a disturbing Soviet legacy.

This is where, in 1927, the Scientific Research Institute of Experimental Pathology and Therapy opened. It was the first primate-testing centre in the world. Its pioneering medical and behavioural experiments set it at the forefront of revolutionary scientific discoveries, such as the creation of a polio vaccine in 1961.

And in the frenzied years of the Space Race the institute became directly involved with the training of cosmonaut monkeys. Six of the institute’s primates made it into orbit.

Then came Perestroika and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Since then the Scientific Research Institute of Experimental Pathology and Therapy has become known instead as the Monkey Colony. It’s as if the monkeys have taken over the asylum.

A war between forces loyal to Georgia’s central government in Tbilisi and Abkhazian separatists took a heavy toll on the institute and its inhabitants. Scientists left, wages were simply discontinued and most of the monkeys either died of cold and malnutrition or managed to escape and try their luck in the lush Abkhaz forests.

Stories even popped up in newspapers of monkeys attacking pensioners as they scavenged for food.

Nowadays the institute’s cages have been slowly repopulated with sad-looking ill-nourished chimps and baboons. Past the decrepit entrance and surrounded by the crumbling buildings of abandoned laboratories a Soviet-era statue, a proud metal figure of a giant baboon, appears to be the only reminder of the institute’s former glory.

A bronze plaque lists the groundbreaking scientific achievements of the institutes. The count stopped in 1986.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 240, published on July 16 2015)

Construction workers die in Georgian capital

JULY 7 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Four construction workers in Tbilisi died when part of a building they were demolishing fell on them, media reported. The former Institute for Physics and Mathematics was being demolished to make way for a hotel. The accident highlights Georgia’s poor construction safety record.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 239, published on July 9 2015)

Kazakhstan spends less funding on healthcare

JULY 9 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Funding for Kazakhstan’s healthcare service needs to be doubled or tripled, media quoted Almas Kurmanov, head of the budget at the ministry of health, as saying. Mr Kurmanov said Kazakhstan spends $254/person on health compared to an OECD average of $2,400.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 239, published on July 9 2015)

Georgians rally against harsh marijuana laws

TBILISI/GEORGIA, JUNE 11 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — To David Gabunia, a well-known Georgian musician, it just doesn’t make sense.

“When you cut down gorgeous big old trees, they let you get away with it,” he said referring to a tree cutting programme by Tbilisi city council. “But when you take a small weed and smoke it, they’ll put you in jail for many years.”

And he’s not alone in pondering this apparent quandary.

Several thousand people across Georgia joined demonstrations and signed online petitions on June 2 calling for the government to reduce harsh laws governing marijuana use.

The largest protest was in Tbilisi, where several hundred people attended a protest in the centre of the city.

Georgia has a zero tolerance drug policy. Drug use is an administrative offence with fines up to 500 lari ($225) for first time offenders and a criminal offence with one year imprisonment for repeat offenders. Carrying small quantities of illegal substances, such as marijuana, can mean prison sentences of between 11 and 20 years, comparable to rape, human trafficking and murder.

Marijuana grows naturally in Georgia, and the Abkhazia version, from the west of the country, is particularly highly thought of. But in the dark days of 1990s post-independent Georgia, society’s view of drugs and their users changed and a zero tolerance policy was introduced.

Since 2013, though, rallies have been organised asking the government to rethink its policies on marijuana. But not everyone is convinced. The powerful Georgian Orthodox Church is staunchly against marijuana and PM Irakli Garibashili also said a couple of days after the rallies that decriminalisation would have disastrous consequences.

“This is an issue of principle, and we are obliged to realise its deplorable consequences. I am personally completely, categorically against it,” he said on his Facebook page.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 235, published on June 11 2015)

Kyrgyz health minister worries

JUNE 10 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Doctors and other health workers will leave Kyrgyzstan for better paid jobs in Kazakhstan and Russia now that the country has joined the Kremlin- led Eurasian Economic Union, media quoted Kyrgyz health minister Talantbek Batyraliyev as saying. Kyrgyzstan’s health service is already in a precarious states.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 235, published on June 11 2015)

Tajikistan wants medics evacuted from Yemen

MARCH 27 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – With a conflict in Yemen between a pro-government alliance that includes various Arab states and Iran-backed rebels worsening, Tajikistan has asked Russia for help repatriating 44 Tajik doctors.

Abdulfaizov Atoyev, a Tajik foreign ministry spokeman, said: “The country is taking all relevant measures to evacuate our citizens.”

Media has reported that Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain and the UAE are preparing for a ground invasion of Yemen.

Doctors and nurses from Tajikistan often travel abroad to work in hospitals and clinics. Remittances from these migrant workers keep the Tajik economy afloat. Russian companies like Zdraveksport and Tekhnoeksport specialise in sending Tajik doctors to Gulf countries. In Yemen, they mostly work for the Red Cross/Red Crescent.

Last October a Tajik nurse was kidnapped in Yemen.

Medical studies represent a climbable social ladder in Tajikistan, as well as providing a route to work abroad. Moving to another country has been a lucrative option for Tajik medics who also want to support their family at home.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 225, published on April 12015)

Kyrgyzstan says it is on the brink of losing control of measles outbreak

MARCH 16 2015 (The Bulletin) – Kyrgyzstan has admitted that it is on the brink of losing control of a measles outbreak with up to 250 suspected cases of the disease reported every day, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said.

Responding to the outbreak, which has been becoming increasingly aggressive over the past year, Kyrgzstan announced that it would vaccinate 2m people under the age of 20.

WHO laced its statement with thinly disguised criticism of Kyrgyzstan’s late response to the epidemic.

“The outbreak, which began in early 2014, has caused over 11,300 suspected cases to date and continues to increase by 120–to 250 suspected cases every day,” WHO said.

“The country’s decision to initiate the mass immunization campaign comes in the wake of a call on 25 February 2015 by WHO Regional Director for Europe Zsuzsanna Jakab for policy-makers, health-care workers and parents to immediately step up vaccination against measles across age groups at risk to stop the outbreaks.”

The measles epidemic and the apparent slow response of the Kyrgyz authorities to deal with it has done damage to Kyrgyzstan’s already tarnished international image.
Bishkek needs its vaccination programme to work.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 223, published on March 18 2015)

Kyrgyz religious leaders warn against vaccines

MARCH 11 2015 (The Bulletin) – Religious leaders in Kyrgyzstan issued a statement saying that it was not un-Islamic to vaccinate children against the measles virus, the Eurasianet website reported. This is important because health experts have blamed fears vaccinations were anti-Islamic for a surge in measles in Kyrgyzstan
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 222, published on March 11 2015)

Measles surge in Kyrgyzstan

MARCH 2 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) -Citing Kyrgyzstan as one of the countries worst affected by a surge in measles, the World Health Organisation (WHO) called for a mass vaccination to prevent the disease spreading. WHO said Kyrgyzstan had 7,477 new measles cases since the start of 2014, out of 22,000 recorded in the Europe region.
-ENDS-

(News report from Issue No. 221, published on March 4 2015)

Measles on the rise in Kyrgyzstan

FEB. 4 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Measles in Kyrgyzstan is on the rise because parents are opting their children out of the vaccination for religious reasons, media reported quoting government doctors. Figures quoted by the media said that the number of confirmed measles cases in Kyrgyzstan rose to 3,400 this year from 200 last year.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 218, published on Feb. 11 2015)