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Kurdistan's Health Minister: Cholera
deaths in Iraqi Kurdistan
29.8.2007
update 2
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August
29, 2007
Sulaimaniyah, Kurdistan region (Iraq), --
Health officials in Iraqi Kurdistan (northern Iraq)
are treating nearly 4,000 suspected cases of cholera
and eight people have died so far, the health
minister for Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdistan region
Zairyan Othman said on Wednesday.
"A health catastrophe could emerge in Kurdistan if
help is not urgently offered by other states and the
World Health Organisation (WHO)," minister Zairyan
Othman said.
Othman said Kurdistan had declared a state of
emergency to prevent the spread of the acute
intestinal infection, which is caught through
contaminated water or food.
"The epidemic could move to other northern provinces
and even to Baghdad," he warned.
In Geneva, the WHO said it was aware of two
outbreaks -- one in the Kurdish province of
Sulaimaniyah and the other in Kirkuk, a province
abutting Kurdistan with a large Kurdish population.
"The response of the main hospital (in Sulaimaniyah)
has been very well organised and taken very
seriously by the minister of health and by various
partners, including WHO," said Claire-Lise Chaignat,
head of WHO's global task force on cholera control.
Health officials said the source of infection in
Sulaimaniyah appeared to be polluted well water that
residents were forced to rely on because of a
shortage of drinking water. In Kirkuk, cracked water
pipes had allowed contamination by sewage.
Visiting a hospital in Kirkuk, Othman said there
were 2,000 suspected cholera cases in Sulaimaniyah
and 1,924 in Kirkuk.
Health officials in Sulaimaniyah have shut down
juice bars and ordered restaurants to stop serving
vegetables that may have been washed in polluted
water, Sherku Abdullah, the general director of the
health office in Sulaimaniyah, said.
Abdullah, who heads an emergency team set up to
tackle the disease, said there were 35 confirmed
cases in Sulaimaniyah and six people had died.
Othman put the death toll in the province at seven,
with an eighth victim in Kirkuk.
He said there were 47 confirmed cases in Kirkuk.
Abdullah said Iraq's Health Ministry had sent 50
tons of medical supplies to the Kurdish region to
fight the epidemic.
Dr. Sabah Hawrami, head of the educational hospital
of Sulaimaniyah, said most of the cholera patients
had probably used well water for drinking because of
a shortage of treated drinking water, a common
problem in Iraq during summer.
Well water levels dropped in the summer months and
could have mixed with sewage water.
A health alert issued by Kurdistan's Health Ministry
has panicked people in Sulaimaniyah. Many have
stopped eating in restaurants for fear of becoming
infected.
"Right after rumours spread about cholera, 80
percent of our customers stopped coming. If the
situation continues we will go bankrupt," said
Sulaimaniyah restaurateur Ahmed Nouridden, 54.
(Additional reporting by Ahmed Rasheed in Baghdad
and Laura MacInnis in Geneva)
Reuters
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