October 1, 2007

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Hospitals in Iraq's northern oil hub are reporting up to 100 new cases of cholera a day as the bacterial disease continues to spread across the country, a top medical official said Monday. Doctor Amir al-Khuzai, the health ministry's pointman in tackling the crisis, said the number of infections in Kirkuk had risen to 2,069 at the weekend from 1,671 earlier in the week.

"This means that we are seeing almost 100 new cases a day in the hospitals of Kirkuk," he told AFP. Twelve Iraqis are confirmed to have died of cholera since the outbreak was first detected on August 23, but the disease struck in Baghdad last week and a mass awareness campaign has been launched.

The death of a 40-year-old woman in the capital one week ago was the second recorded in September. Nine of the 12 deaths since August were in Sulaimaniyah province in Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region with others in Nineveh and Kirkuk.

Khuzai said that the latest health ministry statistics up to Sunday indicated that a total of 2,839 people had now become infected with the disease.

WHO spokewoman Fadela Chaib told journalists in Geneva last month that the spread of cholera into Baghdad was to be expected because of the intense movement of people and goods between the northern provinces and the capital.

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