If you take into account the fact that 97 per cent of the women have anaemia, we are witnessing the degeneration of our people,' says Dr Ataniyazova, a gynaecologist and a director of the state's Centre for Human Reproduction and Family Planning. Children too are born with anaemia, which lowers their immunity. Nor is this the only debilitating condition. Kidney and thyroid diseases, stomach and liver cancers, viral hepatitis and respiratory disorders are all on the increase. One in five young men is found unfit for military service.
Local doctors blame environmental factors.
The Aral Sea, once the fourth-largest lake in the world, has shrunk to half its size in the last 30 years due to the diversion of water for thirsty cotton upstream. Local people are forced to drink polluted drainage water laden with salts and agricultural chemicals. We have pollution all over our territory,' says Dr Ataniyazova. A slow poisoning may be entering the food chain through vegetables, fruit and the few fish that are still caught in local reservoirs. Since 1993 the five Central Asian Republics have been working with the World Bank and other donors to rehabilitate the Aral.