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Tajikistan
Health Conditions
The life expectancy of a male born in Tajikistan in 1989 was
66.8 years, and of a female, 71.7 years. In 1989 this was the
longest life span projection among the five Central Asian republics,
but it was shorter than those of all the other Soviet republics
except Moldavia. In Tajikistan, urban women had the longest life
expectancy (72.9 years), and urban men had the shortest (65.2
years). According to the 1989 census, the most frequent causes
of death in Tajikistan were infections and parasitic diseases,
circulatory disorders, respiratory disorders, tumors, and accidents.
Those causes accounted for 78 percent of the 33,395 deaths in
that year. In the 1970s and the 1980s, Tajikistan's mortality
rate rose from 8.5 to 9.8 per 100 male inhabitants and from 6.7
to 7.3 per 100 female inhabitants.
In the mid-1990s, the health of Tajikistan's citizens was threatened
increasingly by the condition of the country's water supply, which
conveyed disease-causing organisms as well as toxic chemicals
from agricultural and industrial origins to the population. By
the late Soviet era, cases of typhoid occurred thirteen times
more frequently in Tajikistan than in the Soviet Union as a whole.
The health of rural inhabitants was jeopardized by inadequate
sanitation and improper storage of toxic substances, and by environmental
pollution (see Environmental Problems, this ch.).
Maternal and infant mortality remained serious problems in Tajikistan
in the 1990s. In 1988 Tajikistani women were 1.6 times more likely
to die in childbirth than were women in the Soviet Union as a
whole. By 1989, according to official statistics, forty of every
1,000 babies born in Tajikistan did not survive to the age of
one year. In many parts of southern Tajikistan, the rate was more
than sixty per thousand. (The rate of infant mortality was higher
than indicated by official Soviet statistics, which were underreported
in rural areas and often were adjusted downward.) Factors contributing
to infant mortality include family poverty; inadequate nutrition
for nursing mothers, babies, and schoolchildren (who receive inadequate
meals in school); and a lack of safe drinking water. Experts believe
that environmental pollution, especially that caused by the agricultural
chemicals used in cotton production, plays a major role in the
rising rates of maternal and child mortality, as well as in the
relatively high incidence of birth defects.
Employment in heavy industry also poses health risks for women
and their children. By the late 1980s, some 80 percent of low
birth-weight babies were born to women employed in heavy industry
at jobs posing the risk of physical injury. Most important of
all was the poor quality of health care that mothers and infants
received and the inadequacy of the maternal and child care facilities
where care was delivered. By Soviet national standards, Tajikistan
in the late 1980s lacked 8,000 beds in maternity facilities and
13,000 bed for infants. Problems related to infant and maternal
health were more serious in rural areas than in the cities. Soviet
studies linked infant death to poor preventive health care, a
lack of proper medication, and a lack of professional medical
care.
Narcotics use in Tajikistan is rated as a minor health problem;
in 1995 there were an estimated 40,000 drug users in the country
(see Internal Security, this ch.). Authorities discovered heroin
traffic into the country in 1995. As of the end of 1995, Tajikistan
had reported no cases of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS)
to the World Health Organization, although the Ministry of Health
reported that twenty-four AIDS diagnostic laboratories were in
operation in 1993.
Data as of March 1996
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