Cholera Spreads in Iraq as Health Services Collapse

And it continues to get worse. The recent outbreak of cholera in northern Iraq has health officials scrambling for ways to treat those that are sick. With water shortages and lack of medicine the disease is spreading fast having already affected 5,000 people. I wonder just how bad officials will allow it to get until they attempt to do something about it. According to the article 10 people have died with the number expected to rise.

"The outbreak is among the most serious signs yet that Iraqi health and social services are breaking down as the number of those living in camps and poor housing increases after people flee their homes.

"The disease is spreading very fast," Dr. Juan Abdallah, a senior official in Kurdistan's health ministry, told a UN agency. "It's the first outbreak of its kind here in the past few decades."

"There is a shortage of medicines to control the disease and the focal point [the source of the disease] hasn't been identified yet," Dr. Dirar Iyad of Sulaimaniyeh General Hospital told the UN News agency Irin. Ten people have already died and he expects more deaths to occur "over the next couple of days as victims are already in an advanced stage of illness."

Read the rest of the story here: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2914413.ece