Dysentery outbreak stretches Kazakh hospitals

Hospital resources in the Kazakh city of Temirtau are said to be severely over-stretched as authorities try to cope with an outbreak of dysentery.

Nearly one-hundred-and-eighty suspected cases of dysentery, half of them among children, have been reported since the outbreak began last week.

Health services in Temirtau are checking the city's water supply to try to find the source of the infection.

Two children died in a similar outbreak of dysentery in the city of Arkalyk last month, after water supplies were all but cut off when pumps were shut during a power failure.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service