W Kazakhstan records surge in serous meningitis cases

Hospitalizations grew by 18.4% at the West Kazakhstan regional infectious diseases hospital, director Nadiya Akhmetov told a briefing, Kazinform News Agency reports.

Acute enteric infections rose by 79.3%, measles cases by 83.3%, serous meningitis cases grew by 3.7 times, enterovirus infections increased by 2.6 times and pneumonia by 1.5 times.

She said the hospital accepts patients 24 hours a day, provides online and offline consultations, and doctors visit patients in remote areas. There are 190 beds, including 140 infectious diseases beds, including 100 children’s beds, as well as 50 rehabilitation beds in the hospital. Highly skilled health workers work there. The number of doctors rose from 90.4% to 92%, nurses from 95.7% to 99.8%. At the same time, the number of hospital aides dropped from 94.9% to 88.4% due to low wages and heavy workloads during infectious disease epidemics. It is facing a shortage of 12 junior nurses so far.

As earlier reported, 21,089 influenza cases were detected in West Kazakhstan since October 1.