Like other central Asian republics, Turkmenistan has a young age structure, with almost 40 per cent of the population aged under 15. Population growth has declined since 1995. Female life expectancy is 10 years lower in rural areas than in the capital. Both communicable and non-communicable disease rates have been rising, including death rates from diseases of the circulatory system and ischemic heart disease. However, the age-standardized death rate from cancer appears to have dropped. Death rates among men are higher for almost all causes in rural areas.¹¹

In Turkmenistan, the WHO World Health Report (2006) indicates a life expectancy at birth of 56 years for males; 65 years for females (Table 4). Healthy life expectancy is 51.6 years for males; 57.2 years for females.¹²

Table 4: Population life expectancy at birth; Commonwealth of Independent States (plus Mongolia) (2004)

Source: WHO World Health Report 2006

The adult mortality¹³ rate in 2004 is reported as 350/1000 population for males and 166/1000 for females.¹⁴

In 2006, UNAIDS reports:

‘The epidemics in Eastern Europe and Central Asia continue to grow and are affecting ever-larger parts of societies in this region. The number of people living with HIV in this region reached an estimated 1.6 million in 2005 - an increase of almost twenty-fold in less than ten years. AIDS claimed almost twice as many lives in 2005, compared with 2003, and killed an estimated 62,000 adults and children. Some 270,000 people were newly infected with HIV in the past year. The overwhelming majority of people living with HIV in this region are young; 75% of the reported infections between 2000 and 2004 were in people younger than 30 years (in Western Europe, the corresponding figure was 33%).’¹⁵

UNAIDS highlight the lack of data relating to HIV infections in Turkmenistan:

‘By the end of 2004, Turkmen authorities had reported a cumulative total of just two HIV cases, one of which developed AIDS and died. Almost no other national data are available. A leading at-risk population is thought to be IDUs, due to the country’s proximity to Afghanistan and the opiates that are transported through central Asia.’¹⁶

Health Care Systems in Transition (2000) suggests that: ‘Communicable disease remains a threat to the population of Turkmenistan and epidemics of infectious disease have increased in the 1990s.’¹⁷