Iraq Struggles With Cholera Outbreak

Majida Hamid Ibrahim, 40, the first confirmed case of Cholera in the Iraqi capital, is seen in al-Sadr hospital in the Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City in Baghdad, Iraq in this Friday, Sept. 20, 2007, file photo. The woman died on Sunday in Sadr General Hospital in Sadr City from Cholera and kidney failure, a hospital official said. The spread of cholera in Iraq highlights the creeping fractures throughout the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, the country's deepening sectarian gulf and a gangland-style lawlessness in which medical supplies are even fair game for bandits. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim, File) (Karim Kadim - AP)

WHO has confirmed at least 3,315 cholera cases and registered more than 30,000 cases of acute watery diarrhea _ which could also prove to be cholera in its more common, milder form. The group has also warned that _ as the weather cools and temperatures become more favorable for transmission _ the bacteria could spread further.

Dr. Naeema al-Gasseer, the WHO representative in Iraq, says the grim numbers fuel the panic, when in fact the death rate has been "very much less than 1 percent of the total outbreak."

"Let's not focus on numbers, that's not the way to deal with cholera," she said. "We must look at ways to contain it."

Cholera, usually spread by drinking contaminated water, typically causes severe diarrhea that in extreme cases can lead to fatal dehydration and kidney failure. There are normally about 30 cases registered each year in Iraq. The last major outbreak was in 1999, when 20 cases were discovered in one day.

Cholera can be controlled by treating drinking water with chlorine. But authorities want to keep tight controls on chlorine supplies after extremists earlier this year placed chlorine tanks on suicide truck bombs, killing some two dozen people in several attacks and sending noxious clouds that left hundreds of panicked people gasping for breath.

A shipment of 100,000 tons of chlorine was held up for a week at the Jordanian border last month, amid fears for its safe passage through Iraq.

Naeem al-Qabi, from Baghdad's municipal council, said the city now has a two month's supply of chlorine and "more shipments are expected."

A July report by the relief agency Oxfam and the NGO Coordination Committee network in Iraq said that about 70 percent of Iraqis are without adequate water supplies, up from 50 percent in 2003.

That includes more than 2 million people who have been displaced inside Iraq by the fighting, which has forced many to live in unsanitary conditions where sewage can infest food and water and easily spread cholera.

Tom Timberman, leader of a reconstruction team with the 4th Brigade, 25th infantry Division, said water purification and canal clearing systems have broken down due to a lack of maintenance and replacement parts.

Many purification plant workers have been killed or fled the violence, leaving the area with a lack of expertise, Timberman said. Tests at one of the water purification facilities near Iskandariyah, a town 30 miles south of Baghdad, found the filtration system wasn't working, so dirty water was just passing through the pipes.

In Mosul, about 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, officials complain that Baghdad sent them 20 tons of chlorine, while the city needs about 60 tons.

"Now we fear cholera more than the violence," said Shawan Karim, 33, a resident in the northern city of Kirkuk, which has accounted for more than two-thirds of the confirmed cholera cases.

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Associated Press writers Sameer N. Yacoub, Kim Gamel, Saad Abdul-Kadir and Yahya Barzanji contributed to this story.