Iraq faces soaring toll of deadly disease

[DuctapeFatwa]

Soaring rates of disease and a crippled health system are posing a new crisis for the people of Iraq, threatening to kill more than have died in the aftermath of the war. Deadly infections including typhoid and tuberculosis are rampaging through the country, according to the first official report into the state of health in the country.

The alarming evidence is the legacy of years of neglect, crippling sanctions and two bloody conflicts. Iraq's network of hospitals and health centres, once admired throughout the Middle East, has been severely damaged by war and looting, leaving staff struggling to cope and adding to the crisis...

Damage to water supplies and sanitation has led to a surge in typhoid, with 5,460 cases recorded in the first quarter of 2004. Almost one in five urban households and three in five rural households do not have access to safe drinking water....

One in three children are chronically malnourished, putting their lives at serious risk from outbreaks of measles, mumps and jaundice, which are sweeping the country and infecting thousands...Adult death rates have risen and life expectancy has fallen to below 60 for men and women. Overall, Iraq's state of health is now rated on a par with the impoverished countries of the Sudan, Yemen and Afghanistan...

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=571593

[skooooo]

1. yeah but they're free

[Eloriel]

8. Free to die, it sounds like

More criminal consequences at the hands of the Bush administration. Will it ever end?

[TrogL]

2. It's only a matter of time before there's a cholera epidemic

For which the Arab world will blame the US - correctly.

[Wickerman]

3. The Independent hates Freedom

to publish this story.

[teach1st]

4. Whiners!

The oil is semi-secure.

[aquart]

5. Gosh, like we killed the indians.

Ah, tradition.

[ladybugg33]

6. Before Desert Storm, Iraq had the best health system and healthiest

population in the ME besides Kuwait. And Iraqi men and WOMEN were among the most educated in the ME, including Israel. Years of sanctions and bombing have made Iraq a third-rate third-world nation.

Incidently, "sanctions" are the MO by western powers employed just before taking over the natural resources of the nation sanctioned. It's a bloody pattern. Just check out the history. See what is happening in Liberia and other African nations right now and what has happened in the past.

[number6]

7. can u say i wreck

ssmirkkk at work , be afraid, be very a afraid

:scared::scared::scared:

[Voltaire99]

9. Where's Madeline Albright when you need her?

This apocalyptic suffering isn't new. The previous decade of sanctions claimed many, many more lives, and we know from the saintly Madame Albright's lectures that "the price was worth it." (Btw, do see the report out today in The Nation and The Guardian about Baker's scam for the Carlyle Group; Albright is in on it, too.)

What is new in Iraq's seemingly bottomless misery, this time, is that American soldiers could be exposed to an epidemic and bring it back home with them. Then what? Ironically, the worst right wing fears over germ warfare could come to pass. . .

[donheld]

10. I see dead people,,,they're everywhere

and they don't even know they've been liberated :crazy::crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy:

[pinniped]

11. Hmmm...sounds familiar.

I can think of a few populations who were virtually wiped out due to diseases such as this.