Cholera infections in Iraq climb to more than 1,300
Medical authorities in Iraq say the number of recorded cases of cholera in the Arab country has climbed to more than 1, 300, though there have been no new deaths as a result of the waterborne disease.
Director General of Planning and Development at Iraq’s Health Ministry Hassan Hadi Baqer told the Arabic-language al-Sumaria satellite television network on Friday that 41 new cases have been diagnosed over the past 24 hours, bringing the number of people affected in the current cholera outbreak to 1,302.
Baqer added as many as 12 new people have contracted the disease in Baghdad’s al-Rusafa district, which lies on the eastern side of the river Tigris, and seven in Karkh on the western sector of the river.
At least 11 new victims are from the southern Iraqi province of Muthanna, eight from the central province city of Diwaniyah, located 130 kilometers (80 miles) south of the capital, and the other three come from the city of Najaf.
Cholera is an acute intestinal infection caused by ingestion of food or water contaminated with the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. It is a fast-developing infection that causes diarrhea, which can quickly lead to severe dehydration and death if treatment is not promptly provided.
Iraq’s water and sewerage systems are old while infrastructure development has been stalled by years of violence.
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.
Iraq’s Education Ministry has also delayed the opening of primary schools to October 18 “to give the Health Ministry the chance to complete precautionary measures in all schools.”
The latest 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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