Kyrgyzstan

Kyrgyzstan is a landlocked country in Central Asia, bordered by Kazakhstan on the north, on the west by Uzbekistan, and on the east and south by China and Tajikistan. Kyrgyzstan is almost entirely mountinous, with more than half the country at an elevation above 2,500 m (8,200 ft) and 3 percent of the land covered with glaciers or snowpack. Kyrgyzstan became part of Russia's empire in the 1880s and a constituent republic in 1936. [Page 989]It became independent in 1991 after the collapse of the Soviet Union and ratified its constitution in 1993.

The population is 5,284,000 and growing at 1.354 percent annually. The birth rate is 23.08 per 1,000 and the death rate is 7.02 per 1,000. Like many Central Asian states, it is losing a small number of people to migration, with 2.52 Kygyzstanis per 1,000 leaving country. Median age is 23.9 years. Life expectancy is 64.8 years for males and 73.02 years for females. Gross national income is $440 per person, with 40 percent living in poverty. More than 50 percent of the population works in agriculture.

With 77 percent of Kygyzstanis having access to clean water and 59 percent using sanitary latrines, infectious and parasitic illnesses are not uncommon in Kygyzstan. However, while causing a fair amount of misery, communicable disease is responsible for only three percent of all deaths. Like its neighbors, the AIDS rate is low, with 0.1 percent of the population—about 4,000 peo-ple—believed to be infected with the virus. It has not yet moved into the general population, with most of those infecting being IV drug users, prisoners, and sex workers. The tuberculosis rate is rising, but is low for the region. External causes of death account for seven percent of deaths, with 96 deaths per 100,000 (compared with 40 deaths per 100,000 for the European Union).

Eighty-six percent of deaths in Kygyzstan are the result of noncommunicable diseases. The major killer is cardiovascular disease, which accounts for 54 percent of all mortality in the country. Kygyzstanis have several risk factors for the development of cardiovascular disease, with high consumption of tobacco and alcohol prevalent for men, and high cholesterol and obesity common for women. High alcohol consumption and a high rate of viral hepatitis makes digestive diseases like cirrhosis and chronic liver disease another common killer.

Child mortality rates are average for the region, with infant deaths at 58 per 1,000 and deaths for children under 5 at 67 per 1,000. Many Kygyzstani children live in orphanages and state-run institutions even though their parents are still alive; this is a pattern seen around the former Soviet Union, as families have been put under increasing pressures as a result of independent and economic reorganization.

Bridal kidnapping and forced marriages still exist in some parts of Kyrgyzstan, although it is difficult to say how widespread the practice is. Early marriage is common, with a fertility rate of 2.68 children per woman. Contraceptive use is 60 percent, and 97 percent of women receive prenatal care and have a trained attendant during childbirth. Maternal mortality rates remain high at 110 deaths per 100,000 live births. Kyrgyzstan has agreed to the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of reducing maternal mortality by 75 percent from 1990 levels by the year 2015, but rates have actually been increasing since 2002.

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