Disease outbreak affects herding areas
Print Edition
DOCTORS and vets are working to control an outbreak of echinococcosis, or hydatid disease, a fatal parasitic disease affecting several Chinese herding communities.
It mainly affects herding areas in Gansu, Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, Qinghai, Sichuan, Tibet and Xinjiang. In 2012, about 50 million people were under threat from the disease which the government aims to get under control by 2020.
“People can easily be infected by drinking contaminated water or through contact with infected dogs and other animals,” said Zou Bin, a disease prevention worker in Sichuan’s Shiqu County, one of the worst-hit areas.
Shiqu, which has a population of around 100,000, is on the southeastern part of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. About 10 percent of the people are infected with echinococcosis, said Liu Lei, an official with the Sichuan Provincial Disease Control Center. “We are collecting data on dogs and residents who need medication,” he said. “We plan to teach farmers and herders about the condition, give them free medicine, and closely monitor the spread of the infection.”
More than 70,000 residents in Shiqu have been screened since the end of last year, Liu said. That work has been suspended for now, as local people have headed to the mountains to dig up caterpillar fungus, a valuable ingredient in traditional Chinese medicine, he said. “We will proceed with the tests after the fungus season is over.”
In Shiqu, 184 new wells have been dug and about 66,000 people now have access to safe water.
Qinghai Province has screened a million people, and found 7,300 people infected, with 3,000 receiving treatment.
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