Activities in Tajikistan

As part of 2007 to 2015 National Development Strategy (NDS), Tajikistan has set the goal of achieving the Millennium Development Goals for health and medical care. These 2015 goals include reducing infant mortality and improving maternal health to two-thirds and three-fourths of their respective 1990s rates. Two others are to control the spread of infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS and malaria, and to halve the number of people lacking safe drinking water.

After gaining independence in 1991, Tajikistan experienced civil war from 1991 to 1997, followed by economic depression and severe damage to its socioeconomic infrastructure. According to NDS data for 2003, Tajikistan had an infant mortality rate of 89 for every thousand, an under-five mortality rate of 118 for every thousand and a maternal mortality rate of 120 for every 100 thousand. Furthermore, the number of HIV/AIDS patients was 506 in 2005, the inoculation rate for infants under one year old was 95 percent in 2003 and the regional availability of safe drinking water was 47 percent in 2004. Overall, the people of Tajikistan are living under some of the harshest conditions in all of Central Asia.

The 0.5 percent of Tajikistan’s national budget devoted to health care in 2006 is expected to rise to two percent by 2010, with plans in place to gradually raise the vaccine purchasing budget from its 2006 allocation of 300 thousand US dollars.

Tajikistan has an inoculation rate exceeding 95 percent, which resulted in the eradication of polio in 2003. The goal now is to eradicate measles by 2010.

Six vaccinations are presently mandatory in the country: BCG (Bacillus Calmette-Guérin) for tuberculosis, DTP (diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis), measles, OPV (oral polio vaccine), hepatitis B and DT (diphtheria and tetanus). JICA is planning to partner with UNICEF to reduce the infant mortality rate by supplying 40 million yen’s worth of four of the vaccines: BCG, polio, DTP and measles (which supply was discontinued from FY2007). The two remaining vaccines are being supplied through the Tajikistan Ministry of Health’s budget and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.*

*Note: However, GAVI stopped providing hepatitis B vaccines in 2008, with the Ministry of Health assuming 10 percent of the supply in 2007 and 40 percent in 2008. GAVI is also procuring disposable supplies such as vaccine syringes and medical waste disposal safety boxes, and is obtaining vaccines from Japan.

Between 2005 and 2009, four vaccines are being supplied for 280 thousand infants under five years old out of total population of 795 thousand (as of 2006). The costs for vaccines in 2005, 2006, and 2007 have respectively amounted to 34.9 billion yen, 27.6 billion yen and 39.6 billion. A 2006 shortfall was compensated by UNICEF procurement.