uruknet.info
  اوروكنت.إنفو
     
    informazione dal medio oriente
    information from middle east
    المعلومات من الشرق الأوسط

[ home page] | [ tutte le notizie/all news ] | [ download banner] | [ ultimo aggiornamento/last update 01/01/1970 01:00 ] 35829


english italiano

  [ Subscribe our newsletter!   -   Iscriviti alla nostra newsletter! ]  



IRAQ: Hospitals in north struggle to contain cholera outbreak


Doctors in the northern city of Sulaimaniyah have asked for more help to cope with the rapidly increasing number of cholera cases. "We need urgent medical support as the disease is spreading. We didn’t expect an outbreak in this area," said Dr Dirar Iyad of Sulaimaniyah General Hospital. "There is a shortage of medicines to control the disease and the focal point [source of the disease] hasn’t been identified yet… Five deaths have so far been reported here and in Kirkuk, and we believe more could occur over the next couple of days as victims are already in an advanced stage of the illness," he said. 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...

[35829]



Uruknet on Alexa


End Gaza Siege
End Gaza Siege

>

:: Segnala Uruknet agli amici. Clicka qui.
:: Invite your friends to Uruknet. Click here.




:: Segnalaci un articolo
:: Tell us of an article






IRAQ: Hospitals in north struggle to contain cholera outbreak

IRIN News

2003590.jpg

SULAIMANIYAH, 30 August 2007 (IRIN) - Doctors in the northern city of Sulaimaniyah have asked for more help to cope with the rapidly increasing number of cholera cases.

"We need urgent medical support as the disease is spreading. We didn’t expect an outbreak in this area," said Dr Dirar Iyad of Sulaimaniyah General Hospital.

"There is a shortage of medicines to control the disease and the focal point [source of the disease] hasn’t been identified yet… Five deaths have so far been reported here and in Kirkuk, and we believe more could occur over the next couple of days as victims are already in an advanced stage of the illness," he said.

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 disease spread very fast. It is the first outbreak of its kind in the past few decades.''

According to a report on Al-Jazeera TV on 30 August, which quoted "official sources" at Kurdistan’s health ministry, eight people - seven in Sulaimaniyah and one in Kirkuk - had died of cholera, and a state of emergency had been declared in all hospitals in the cities of Iraqi Kurdistan. The report went on to say there were over 35 cholera cases in Sulaimaniyah and 47 in Kirkuk. A further 350 people had acute diarrhoea and were suspected of having contracted the disease.

Cholera is an acute intestinal infection caused by ingestion of food or water contaminated with the bacterium vibrio cholerae. It has a short incubation period and produces an enterotoxin that causes copious, painless, watery diarrhoea that can quickly lead to severe dehydration and death if treatment is not promptly given.

Causes

"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 percent of the population don’t have access to clean water and proper sewage systems."
''Cholera is an easily treatable disease and the prompt administration of ORS to replace lost fluids nearly always results in a cure, but without proper assistance and with so many IDPs living in deteriorated conditions in Iraq, the situation might get worse.''

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. "Mains water is only available for two hours per day at most in the city. A water quality report on Suleimaniyah in July showed that only 50 per cent of the city’s water was chlorinated," said UNICEF, adding that many had been reduced to digging shallow wells outside their homes.

UNICEF response

UNICEF, in coordination with the World Health Organization (WHO), which is leading the UN response, has delivered 4,000 cannulae and needles and 15,000 sachets of oral rehydration salts (ORS).

ORS is critical to prevent death from dehydration caused by severe diarrhoea. UNICEF said 4,000 safe water kits were being delivered on 30 August to families in the Suleimaniyah area, where significant numbers of IDPs are also at risk.

"Cholera is an easily treatable disease and the prompt administration of ORS to replace lost fluids nearly always results in a cure, but without proper assistance and with so many IDPs living in deteriorated conditions in Iraq, the situation might get worse," Iyad said.

According to a press release issued by UNICEF on 29 August, 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.

Photo: IRIN
UNICEF is appealing to families in affected areas to ensure their children are kept away from areas contaminated with raw sewage

UNICEF is appealing to families in the affected areas to ensure that children, in particular, are kept away from areas contaminated with raw sewage, that they always wash their hands with soap, and only drink water that has been purified or boiled.

"My two children, husband and mother have been affected by cholera because we weren’t able to get purified water and one of my children is very sick in hospital," Um Abir, a 34-year-old resident of Kirkuk said.

"We have been displaced since January 2007 and we have to camp near a rubbish pit which, according to the doctor, might be the reason for all the family being affected," she added.

as/ar/cb


:: Article nr. 35829 sent on 31-aug-2007 01:51 ECT

www.uruknet.info?p=35829

Link: www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=74028



:: The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this website.

The section for the comments of our readers has been closed, because of many out-of-topics.
Now you can post your own comments into our Facebook page: www.facebook.com/uruknet





       
[ Printable version ] | [ Send it to a friend ]


[ Contatto/Contact ] | [ Home Page ] | [Tutte le notizie/All news ]







Uruknet on Twitter




:: RSS updated to 2.0

:: English
:: Italiano



:: Uruknet for your mobile phone:
www.uruknet.mobi


Uruknet on Facebook






:: Motore di ricerca / Search Engine


uruknet
the web



:: Immagini / Pictures


Initial
Middle




The newsletter archive




L'Impero si è fermato a Bahgdad, by Valeria Poletti


Modulo per ordini




subscribe

:: Newsletter

:: Comments


Haq Agency
Haq Agency - English

Haq Agency - Arabic


AMSI
AMSI - Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq - English

AMSI - Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq - Arabic




Font size
Carattere
1 2 3





:: All events








     

[ home page] | [ tutte le notizie/all news ] | [ download banner] | [ ultimo aggiornamento/last update 01/01/1970 01:00 ]




Uruknet receives daily many hacking attempts. To prevent this, we have 10 websites on 6 servers in different places. So, if the website is slow or it does not answer, you can recall one of the other web sites: www.uruknet.info www.uruknet.de www.uruknet.biz www.uruknet.org.uk www.uruknet.com www.uruknet.org - www.uruknet.it www.uruknet.eu www.uruknet.net www.uruknet.web.at.it




:: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more info go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
::  We always mention the author and link the original site and page of every article.
uruknet, uruklink, iraq, uruqlink, iraq, irak, irakeno, iraqui, uruk, uruqlink, saddam hussein, baghdad, mesopotamia, babilonia, uday, qusay, udai, qusai,hussein, feddayn, fedayn saddam, mujaheddin, mojahidin, tarek aziz, chalabi, iraqui, baath, ba'ht, Aljazira, aljazeera, Iraq, Saddam Hussein, Palestina, Sharon, Israele, Nasser, ahram, hayat, sharq awsat, iraqwar,irakwar All pictures

url originale



 

I nostri partner - Our Partners:


TEV S.r.l.

TEV S.r.l.: hosting

www.tev.it

Progetto Niz

niz: news management

www.niz.it

Digitbrand

digitbrand: ".it" domains

www.digitbrand.com

Worlwide Mirror Web-Sites:
www.uruknet.info (Main)
www.uruknet.com
www.uruknet.net
www.uruknet.org
www.uruknet.us (USA)
www.uruknet.su (Soviet Union)
www.uruknet.ru (Russia)
www.uruknet.it (Association)
www.uruknet.web.at.it
www.uruknet.biz
www.uruknet.mobi (For Mobile Phones)
www.uruknet.org.uk (UK)
www.uruknet.de (Germany)
www.uruknet.ir (Iran)
www.uruknet.eu (Europe)
wap.uruknet.info (For Mobile Phones)
rss.uruknet.info (For Rss Feeds)
www.uruknet.tel

Vat Number: IT-97475012153