A Plague on the Nation

BN  09/26 Cholera Spreads in Iraq, Aided by Lack of Clean Water (Update1)                                                                            
                                                                               
     (Adds infrastructure damage in third paragraph.)                          
                                                                               
By Simeon Bennett                                                              
     Sept. 26 (Bloomberg) -- Cholera is spreading in Iraq, where               
health authorities are struggling to provide enough clean                      
drinking water to stem the potentially lethal water-borne                      
disease, the World Health Organization said.                                   
     More than 30,000 people have suffered acute watery diarrhea,              
the main symptom of cholera, and 2,110 people have been                        
diagnosed with the disease during the past month, WHO said                     
yesterday in a statement on its Web site. About five of every                  
1,000 cases were fatal, the Geneva-based agency said.                          
     Conflicts, sabotage and neglect since the 1991 Gulf War                   
have damaged Iraq's water and sewerage treatment systems,                      
leaving many Iraqis without clean drinking water, the World Bank               
said on its Web site. Thirty percent of Iraq's population has                  
reliable access to safe water, the United Nations Children's                   
Fund said in a statement yesterday.                                            
     ``Provision of safe water is the highest priority in                      
controlling an outbreak of cholera,'' WHO said in its statement.               
A shortage of chlorination products is hampering the                           
government's efforts to provide enough clean drinking water to                 
ensure the disease doesn't spread further, it said.                            
     The U.S. has about 165,000 soldiers in Iraq trying to end                 
sectarian violence that has increased since the U.S.-led                       
invasion in 2003 ousted Saddam Hussein.                                        
                                                                               
                         Kirkuk Province                                       
                                                                               
     The cholera outbreak was first detected in Kirkuk province,               
where more than two-thirds of confirmed cases have been reported,              
and has since spread to about 30 districts throughout the Middle               
Eastern nation, the UN health agency said. Only two cases have                 
so far been diagnosed in Baghdad, Iraq's capital.                              
     Kits to treat the disease arrived in Iraq on Sept. 16, and                
stool samples are being sent to Egypt's capital, Cairo, for                    
tests to determine the strain of bacteria, WHO said.                           
     The disease is contracted by drinking water or eating food                
contaminated with the cholera bacterium. The infection often                   
causes mild or no symptoms. About 20 percent of patients develop               
profuse watery diarrhea, vomiting and leg cramps. Rapid loss of                
body fluids can lead to dehydration and shock.                                 
     Without treatment, death can occur within hours, according                
to the U.S. Centers of Disease Control and Prevention. With                    
prompt rehydration, less than 1 percent of cholera patients die,               
the CDC said. The Netherlands' Crucell NV and at least two other               
companies have produced effective vaccines against the disease.                
     Cholera deaths almost tripled last year as outbreaks of the  
disease spread through contaminated water across Africa, WHO                   
said last month. Worldwide, 6,306 people died from the diarrheal               
illness in 2006, compared with 2,272 the previous year. The                    
number of confirmed cases surged 79 percent to 236,896, the                    
highest in almost a decade, WHO said Aug. 3 in its Weekly                      
Epidemiological Record.                                                        
                                                                               
--Editor: J. Gale (pmt)                                                        
                                                                               
To contact the reporter on this story:                                         
Simeon Bennett in Singapore at +65-6212-1574 or                                
sbennett9@bloomberg.net.                                                       
                                                                               
To contact the editor responsible for this story:                              
Jason Gale at +65-6212-1579 or j.gale@bloomberg.net