CHOLERA OUTBREAK IN IRAQ

Doctors in the northern city of Sulaimaniyah have asked for more help to cope with the rapidly increasing number of cholera cases. According Dr Juan Abdallah, a senior official in Kurdistan’s health ministry, over 2,300 cases of cholera have been reported in the area, including Kirkuk over a four-week period. “The disease spread very fast.

Written by

Published on

June 12, 2022

Doctors in the northern city of Sulaimaniyah have asked for more help to cope with the rapidly increasing number of cholera cases. According Dr Juan Abdallah, a senior official in Kurdistan’s health ministry, over 2,300 cases of cholera have been reported in the area, including Kirkuk over a four-week period. “The disease spread very fast. It is the first outbreak of its kind in the past few decades,” said Abdallah. “The bad sanitation in Iraq, especially in the outskirts of cities where IDPs [internally displaced persons] are camped, has put people at serious risk,” Abdallah said, adding: “In Sulaimaniyah and Kirkuk at least 42 per cent of the population don’t have access to clean water and proper sewage systems.” It is the first outbreak of its kind in the past few decades. The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said the outbreak has due to serious problems with water quality and sewage treatment. It quoted local reports which said that only 30 per cent of the population in Suleimaniyah had an adequate water supply. According to a press release issued by UNICEF, the local authorities said that over 2,000 people had been affected and about 500 hospitalised in the previous two days with severe diarrhoea. UNICEF said 47 cases had been confirmed as epidemic cholera, and this number was expected to grow.