Iraq cholera infections top 1,900: Health Ministry
Iraqi medical authorities say the number of recorded cases of cholera in the war-ravaged Arab country now stands at more than 1,900, though the waterborne disease has claimed no new lives in days.
Iraq’s Health Ministry announced on Wednesday that 91 new cases have been diagnosed over the past 24 hours, bringing the number of people affected in the current cholera epidemic to 1,902, the Arabic-language al-Baghdadia satellite television network reported.
The report added that at least 49 new victims are from the central province of Babil. As many as 22 new people have contracted the disease in the central southern province of al-Diwaniyah, and 16 in Baghdad’s al-Rusafa district, which lies on the eastern side of the river Tigris.
Three patients come from the southeastern Iraqi province of Maysan, and another one is from the oil-rich northern province of Kirkuk.
Ingestion of food or water contaminated with the bacterium Vibrio cholera causes the infection. The acute intestinal disease is fast-developing, and causes diarrhea, which can quickly lead to severe dehydration and death, if treatment is not promptly provided.
Years of violence have stalled the infrastructural development of Iraq’s rundown water and sewerage systems.
Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has ordered a set of measures aimed at improving hygiene, among them daily water quality tests, distribution of bottled water to families internally displaced due to the conflict, and the installation of additional water purification stations.
A registered cholera outbreak in Iraq killed four people and infected some 300 others in the northern city of Kirkuk, situated 236 kilometers (147 miles) north of Baghdad, and the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region in 2012. Five years before that, about 24 people died of the disease and over 4,000 cases were confirmed.
Iraq faces regular threats from other water-borne and food-borne diseases such as measles, typhoid fever, hepatitis, and Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever due to poor public services and hygiene, according to the World Health Organization.
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