Health Ministry says unfavorable weather conditions lead to increase in pneumonia cases in the country

The Republican Coronavirus Prevention Commission met in Dushanbe on April 17.

According to the press center of the Ministry of Health and Social Protection of the Population, the meeting participants discussed the pneumonia death cases that had led to rumors n in social networks that those persons had died from a novel coronavirus (COVID-19).

“Speaking at the meeting, Deputy Health Minister, Shodikhon Jamshed, noted that unfavorable weather conditions have led to increase in the number of respiratory diseases, including pneumonia cases,” the Health Ministry press center says.

According to the statistical data from the Health Ministry, the following number of infectious diseases was reported in the last year: flu – 9,982 cases per 100,000 population; pneumonia – 1,293 cases per 100,000 population; acute respiratory viral infection – 350,702 cases; asthma – 1,293 cases per 100,000 population; and typhus – 8 cases per 100,000 population. 

“There ought not to blow the sensation due to a sharp jump in the number of pneumonia because it is a seasonal disease.  No cases of coronavirus infection have been registered in the country,” the press center says.  

Recall, a 61-year-old resident of the Jabbor-Rasoulov district (Sughd province), Habibullo Shodiyev, died on April 5.  Health officials informed the family of the deceased that he had been diagnosed with pneumonia.

This death might have gone mostly unnoticed if some media had not reported that the central district hospital in the Jabbor-Rasoulov district hospital, where the man had undergone treatment, was placed under quarantine after his passing.

Another resident of the Jabbor-Rasoulov district, Hojimuhammad Toshev, who had been quarantined since late March because of contacting with Shodiyev’s brother, Abdujalil Shodiyev, suddenly died on April 11 of what health officials have attributed to heart failure. 

One more resident of the Jabbor-Rasoulov district, Muminjon Mirbarotov, died in the central district in the Spitamen district (Sughd province), on April 16 of what health officials attributed to bronchopneumonia.

Meanwhile, Radio Liberty’s Tajik Service, known locally as Radio Ozodi, reported that Jaloliddin Pirov, an employee of the Dushanbe prosecutor’s office, died in the Dushanbe-based Istiqlol hospital on April 19.

According to health officials, he died of pneumonia.  He was reportedly taken to the Dushanbe infectious diseases hospital on April 13 with diagnosis of pneumonia.  However, three days later, his condition worsened sharply and he was taken to the Istiqlol hospital, where he died on April 19.  

According to Pirov’s relatives, medical workers in protective clothing brought his body in coffin  into the apartment building courtyard for farewell and immediately took it away for burial.

According to official data from the Ministry of Health and Social Protection of the Population, 7,871 people were reportedly quarantined after arriving from abroad between February 1 and April 17; 6,348 of them have already been released and none of those released had the coronavirus.