Is There a Cholera Epidemic in Iraq?

Just last week the U.S. military was reassuring reporters that accounts of a cholera epidemic were ”overstated” and added that “the risk of Cholera spreading to Baghdad is reasonably low.” (Sulaymania.pdf)

Well, today the World Health Organization warned that millions of people in northern Iraq are at risk of being exposed to cholera:

“All evidence suggests that transmission is still circulating. It is unclear what caused the outbreak, but initial investigation show some evidence that, in Sulemaniya, polluted water that residents were forced to rely on due to a shortage of drinking water may have been to blame. In Kirkuk, cracked water pipes allowed contamination by sewage, and because of the close geographic proximity the outbreak spread to Erbil…”

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This entry was posted on Monday, September 10th, 2007 at 2:15 pm and is filed under Health Care, Iraq War. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.