Iraq Health Officials: Cholera outbreak could reach Baghdad in weeks

Above: Soldiers from the 1st Cavalry Division set up a pump and generator in order to pump water out of a building flooded by a broken water pipe at the Karkh Water Treatment Plant in Tarmiyah in May.Cholera is a severe diarrheal disease caused by bacteria ingested in contaminated water or food. In its most severe forms, cholera is one of the most rapidly fatal illnesses known: A healthy person may become hypotensive within an hour of the onset of symptoms and may die within 2-3 hours if no treatment is provided. Death is by dehydration through massive diarrhea.

A cholera epidemic in northern Iraq has infected approximately 7,000 people and could reach Baghdad within weeks as the disease spreads through the country's decrepit and unsanitary water system, Iraqi health officials said.

The World Health Organization reported that the epidemic is concentrated in the northern regions of Kirkuk and Sulaimaniya and that 10 people are known to have died. But Dr. Said Hakki, president of the Iraqi Red Crescent Society, a relief organization that has responded to the epidemic, said Tuesday that new cases had turned up in the neighboring provinces, Erbil and Nineweh, indicating that the disease had spread.

Most significant, Hakki said, were two cases in a village between Kirkuk and Diyala provinces, one involving a young girl. Baghdad is next to Diyala.

Because of that geographic spread, Hakki said, health officials at the Red Crescent estimate that cases will begin turning up in Baghdad in late September or early October, when temperatures are especially favorable for the growth of the bacteria Vibrio cholerae, which causes the disease by infecting the intestine.

Read the rest at the International Herald Tribune

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