Via KurdNet, an AFP report from a region rarely heard from here: Cholera outbreak in Iraqi Kurdistan kills two people, 27 cholera cases confirmed. I note the ironic use of quotation marks around Iraq. Excerpt:
SULÊMANI, Kurdistan region 'Iraq',— Two people have died of cholera in Iraqi Kurdistan's Sulaimaniyah province in the second outbreak in five years, the autonomous region's health minister said on Tuesday.
Two elderly people died of the disease last week in Sulaimaniyah, Rekawt Hama Rasheed told AFP, adding that there have been 27 confirmed cases so far.
Authorities are testing about 75 people for cholera per day, Rasheed said. The Kurdistan region depends on Baghdad to test the samples.
It is the second cholera outbreak to hit Sulaimaniyah in the past five years.
An outbreak in the region in 2007 led to 2,000 infections and 24 deaths. Hardest hit was the northern city of Sulaimaniyah, where 14 people died.
Iraq's Kurdistan Health Minister confirmed in September 2007 that the region had between 800 to 1000 confirmed cases of cholera, describing earlier reports on the presence of 7,000 cholera cases in the region as baseless.
