This latest Iraq Health and Infrastructure Digest is a compilation of 9 articles covering a wide range of issues facing people in Iraq. Summaries are given as well as the full, or relevant portion of the articles.

Digest by David Smith-Ferri, Voices in the Wilderness

Article Summaries

• Polluted water kills “It’s the water. The water is dirty. It smells. Please, fix the water. It is disgusting.” Sadr City resident Lamia Khudier. “For us, the most important thing is the children. They are suffering because of this contamination.” Sadr City Health Clinic director Ziad Nima Salman. [read article]

• Families returning to Karabila, in battered Western Iraq, in urgent need of aid: The town has been suffering from a lack of purified water and local health clinics and hospitals face a chronic shortage of medicines. “Some families are going to the capital to get their medicine because we do not have enough drugs. The health situation in all the western cities is critical,” Dr Hamed al-Alousi, director of the nearby al-Qaim general hospital, said. [read article]

• Iraqis sell their blood to survive: Constant donations by the same person at frequent intervals could result in the development of serious blood diseases, such as chronic anemia. But this has failed to deter people who face desperate times. “The next time I come here I will bring my 15-year-old son with me so that he can donate and help me to bring more money to my family,” Ammar added. [read article]

• Farmers need seed and equipment: Iraqi farmers say they urgently need supplies of good quality seed, pesticides and equipment if they are to be able to grow quality crops and prevent long term damage to agricultural land and loss of income. Their difficulties started after the US-led invasion in 2003, ending the regime of Saddam Hussein the farmers say. [read article]

• U.S. General Myers explains lack of electricity: Infrastructure work is making some progress, but it will be slow going. “We’re still not going to meet the demand for electricity,” he said. Right now electricity is free in Iraq so, “there’s always going to be more of a demand than there is supply.” The infrastructure was in worse shape under Saddam than anyone imagined. It will take time to rehabilitate basic services. [read article]

• Why Iraq oil money hasn’t fueled rebuilding: As the country with the world’s second-largest known oil reserves, Iraq should be sitting pretty at a time of $60-a-barrel oil, analysts say. But they quickly add that Iraq’s potential has been tamped down by a continuing failure to invest in renewing the country’s decrepit oil infrastructure and an ill-conceived strategy of placing exports above oil-field modernization. [read article]

• Graft undermining rebuilding infrastructure: Violence and graft in Iraq inhibit donors from following through on aid pledges. Only pennies of the $14B pledged by donors for Iraq reconstruction has been committed. And the $18B in US aid has generated little actual reconstruction. Much of the money has been diverted, for example paying instead for security. [read article]

• Iran willing to help pay for construction of Iraqi hospitals: the administrative undersecretary of the Ministry of Health, Dr Jalil al-Shamari, announced that Iran “has expressed its willingness to provide material support to Iraq totalling some 15m dollars for the construction of hospitals in Al- Najaf and Karbala and another hospital in Sadr City.” [read article]

• 4.7 million children under five vaccinated against polio: “In recent weeks, the UN worked to vaccinate 4.7 million Iraqi children five years and under … as part of a series of initiatives aimed at bolstering health among the population. According to the UN, an “alarming rise in the incidence of polio cases in nearby Yemen” prompted the immunisation campaign across Iraq. [read article]

Articles

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Quieter than bombs, Iraq’s foul water also kills

11 Jul 2005
By Salem Ureibi

BAGHDAD, July 11 (Reuters) - In Baghdad’s Sadr City slum a pipe has burst, turning an empty building lot into a garbage- strewn mudhole. Children are gambolling in the filth, cooling from the 45 degree Celsius (115 Fahrenheit) summer heat.

A man scoops up the dirty water with a tin bucket into a tub in the back of his pickup truck to take home to his family.

Insurgent sabotage, years of neglect and a reconstruction effort halted because of violence have turned Iraq’s water supply into a stinking trickle, killing Iraqis as surely as bullets and bombs. Most of those who die are small children.

“My son is suffering from dehydration,” says Lamia Khudier, clutching tiny baby Akeel at Sadr City’s Health Clinic Number 6.

“It’s the water. The water is dirty. It smells. Please, fix the water. It is disgusting.”

Baghdad’s pipes are broken. Fresh water and raw sewage mix underground. Water pressure is low or non-existent, forcing Baghdadis to use their own pumps to suck out foul water.

The clinic’s director, Ziad Nima Salman, says most children in the slum suffer from dehydration, diarrhoea and vomiting. Babies are fed milk made by mixing powder with putrid water.

TREND WORRYING

Few records are kept of how many children are dying. International aid organisations have largely fled. But from where Salman is sitting, the problem has got worse over the last two years.

His clinic has treated twice as many patients with hepatitis A and typhoid in just the first six months of this year than in all of 2004, he said.

“For us, the most important thing is the children. They are suffering because of this contamination,” he said.

U.S. troops say insurgents are targeting infrastructure to undermine the new government’s claim to success.

In the past three weeks there have been three attacks on water pumping stations and pipelines, each depriving much of the city of water.

Major General William Webster, commander of U.S. forces in the Iraqi capital, said last week that car bomb attacks in the capital are down: “Now they are attacking infrastructure.”

Iraq’s water supply was probably the single most important victim of the overall neglect of infrastructure during more than a decade of UN-imposed economic sanctions.

Many had hoped that after the fall of Saddam Hussein, U.S. forces would oversee rapid reconstruction and improvement.

But violence has dispelled any hope of a quick fix.

“The entire fresh water system needs to be replaced,” said Webster. “About 50 percent of fresh water was already being lost before reaching the taps because the pipes were in such bad shape.”

U.S. forces say they have spent $2 billion on repairing infrastructure in the capital over the past 18 months. But locals say the situation has got little better, or worse.

It costs a lot to fix pipes in a war zone, said Webster.

“The things that go below the ground … are incredibly expensive. Especially when you have to pay for security for that local jobsite,” he said. “To repair the stuff that the bastards are blowing up … costs a hell of a lot.”

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Families returning to Karabila in need

17 Jul 2005

BAGHDAD, 17 July (IRIN) - Nearly all residents from the town of Karabila, in Iraq’s western Anbar governorate have returned, but are now in need of humanitarian assistance.

They fled a heavy US-led attack four weeks ago against insurgents, aid agencies said.

Some 65 percent of buildings in the town have been damaged following battles between US forces and insurgents, according to the Iraqi Red Crescent Society (IRCS).

The operation left around 7,000 families displaced in the nearby desert, close to the city of al-Qaim. Now they have gone back to their homes and are trying to piece their lives together again, following the five-day military operation.

According to a report released by the IRCS on Wednesday, the situation in the town is critical for many families especially those whose properties have been destroyed are now forced to live in tents inside the town.

Others are making do in dangerous, partly destroyed buildings, some confined to only one room. Others have been forced to camp in the gardens of their wrecked former homes.

“When you ask families there if the situation is better they will answer that it has improved - but simply because there is no fighting. Security has become the most important issue for Iraqis and food and supplies come second,” Mazem Sallon, general secretary of the IRCS, said in Baghdad.

Sallon added that only 30 families are still displaced in an area near the town called Akashat mineral compound.

The Iraqi government has not said whether residents will be compensated for the losses they have sustained. Repairs to essential public utilities, such as water and power, have not yet started.

“We are studying the case of Karabila and we will soon find a solution. We have not started work inside because we are checking if the situation is calm there,” Salah Hussein, a senior official in the Iraqi government, said.

The town has been suffering from a lack of purified water and local health clinics and hospitals face a chronic shortage of medicines.

“Some families are going to the capital to get their medicine because we do not have enough drugs. The health situation in all the western cities is critical,” Dr Hamed al-Alousi, director of the nearby al-Qaim general hospital, said.

The IRCS said it was in the process of sending a convoy into the area carrying thousands of medical kits, including emergency equipment. These were donated by the Syrian Red Crescent Society (SRCS), the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Greek Doctors’ Association (GDA).

Following constant battles in Anbar province between US forces and insurgent groups, the IRCS is running low on supplies and has called for assistance from international aid organisations.

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Iraqis sell their blood to survive

12 Jul 2005

BAGHDAD, 12 July (IRIN) - Iraqis are selling their own blood to people who are buying supplies for relatives in need, due to a shortage, doctors say. This has caused concern over the spread of disease since the supplies are not checked for blood-bourne infections.

Every day hundreds of donors can be seen standing outside the blood bank at the Iraqi National Centre for Blood Donations (INCBD) in the capital, Baghdad.

More people have started to donate blood following shortages and a call from the Health Ministry for increased supplies to cope with increasing violence in the country, resulting in more patients requiring urgent blood transfusions.

However, people in the queue willing to donate for free are being intercepted before they reach the centre. Donors are approached by so called ‘negotiators’ who pay them between US $ 15 - $20 per blood bag. At a time when unemployment stands at 33 percent and most of the country is still dependent on food rations, the sale of blood may be an attractive option for many.

“Every week I come here to sell my blood. It is very easy to get someone to buy it because many families are desperate to help their loved ones who are injured in the hospitals,” Nazaare Ammar from Baghdad said, as he stood in the queue to donate blood.

“I was searching for a job for a long time but they pay very little or they ask for typing or English skills and I don’t have this so selling blood is easier,” he added.

The procedure entails the buyer, someone who is usually in need of supplies for a loved one in hospital, presenting the negotiator with the blood type needed along with the quantity required. Then the negotiator approaches donors in the queue who have the same blood type and enters the donation room with them.

There they negotiate with the blood collectors and persuade them to release the bag stating that there is an emergency. Within half an hour the bag is taken to the buyer, containing approximately 350 cu centimetres of blood.

Health officials say there is little they can do about the sale but have stepped up measures at the collection point.

Dr Haydar Shamari, director of the INCBD said that many blood samples were found to be carrying hepatitis C virus, but that luckily no HIV cases have yet been detected.

“The high requirement of blood every day has resulted in desperation from families to buy blood directly from donors. In our latter analyses we have found cases of infections which have definitely been transmitted to the patient through transfusion,” he explained.

According to Shamari the centre is low on supplies and their equipment is old and inefficient. A shortage of blood bags has caused a delay in the donations.

Dr Waleed Kubaissy, a haematologist at Karama hospital in the capital, explained that blood from the same patient should be only be taken with a minimum interval of three months between donations.

Constant donations by the same person at frequent intervals could result in the development of serious blood diseases, such as chronic anemia.

But this has failed to deter people who face desperate times.

“The next time I come here I will bring my 15-year-old son with me so that he can donate and help me to bring more money to my family,” Ammar added.

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Farmers in need of seed and equipment

11 Jul 2005

BAGHDAD, 11 July (IRIN) - Iraqi farmers say they urgently need supplies of good quality seed, pesticides and equipment if they are to be able to grow quality crops and prevent long term damage to agricultural land and loss of income.

Their difficulties started after the US-led invasion in 2003, ending the regime of Saddam Hussein the farmers say.

Normally, supplies of fresh seed would be purchased through the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) at controlled prices. But the amount of seed available had become insufficient for the requirements of farmers.

“After the military missions ended in Iraq, most of the Iraqi farmers stopped receiving any supplies from the stores of the agricultural ministry,” Hamed Razak, a farmer from Baghdad said.

“These missing supplies affected our income and crops because we had to buy them from the market at a price double or treble the official price,” Razak continued.

Because farmers had to pay inflated prices for seed purchased on the open market they could only afford to buy a smaller amount of seed and production was drastically reduced.

“Decreased supplies of seed and equipment by the Ministry of Agriculture made planting a large area impossible. This also meant leaving the land without growing crops which caused increased saltiness (salinity) and uncultivated wild land,” another farmer from Baghdad, Hassen Jassem said.

In order to continue planting a larger area, many farmers used the MoA supply and then made up the shortfall with seeds from the market. Jassem added that seed and supplies purchased in this way were not checked for quality which caused further problems.

“The farmer bought his stock from the local market which is not the best choice because seeds and pesticides are expensive or bad quality which affected both farmer’s crops and consumers,” Jassem added.

Iraq produces wheat, barley, rice, corn, dates and assorted vegetable crops. Most of the rice, vegetables and dates are grown in central and southern Iraq.

Farmers need supplies of quality seeds and equipment, such as combine harvesters and tractors, particularly for the grain crops.

After the UN sanctions were imposed in the 1990’s affecting food supplies, Saddam Hussein issued orders for an 80 percent increase in the area planted with cereal corps.

The MoA supplied the farmers with fertiliser, seeds, farm equipment, pesticides, water pumps and fuel under Saddam’s rule.

These supplies came to an abrupt halt when many of the government storage facilities were looted and burned after the US-led war in 2003, pushing agricultural productivity down to critical levels.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) reports after 2003 showed that there was an urgent requirement for spare parts and fuel in order to keep combine harvesters and tractors running for the upcoming harvest season. In addition, urgent support was needed to revive cereal crop marketing and distribution facilities.

The FAO launched an emergency aid appeal for Iraq in 2003 to raise US $86 million for agricultural assistance to secure crop and livestock production and to improve productivity in the agricultural sector.

The MoA is now redoubling efforts to supply mechanised equipment and supplies to farmers to ensure the production of the staple cereal crops, wheat and barley in order to maintain production.

“We will supply the farmers with water sprinkler equipment and tractors for reasonable prices or by installment payments for the spring harvest,” the director of the Research Department of the State Company of Agricultural Supplies (SCAS) in the MoA Mohammed Abdul-Kareem said.

“We will distribute these supplies through our marketing departments, agents and local farmers association (LFA) in the country,” Abdul-Kareem continued.

Some farmers in Baghdad complain that the MoA supports only the producers of staple crops while farmers who grow vegetables receive no assistance.

“I have not received seeds or equipment from the MoA for three years. I bought seeds and pesticides from the market and I rent tractors to plant my land,” said Baghdad farmer Madee Ali.

However, an official at the MoA said the plan for agriculture this year will cover all the farmers’ needs and will cover producers of both staple and non-staple crops.

“We are planning to supply equipment, seeds, pesticides, animal feed, plastic, nylon and animal inoculations and spare parts for all the farmers in whole the country,” Abdul-Kareem said.

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Myers Stresses Political Progress in Iraq, Afghanistan

United States Department of Defense
By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, July 13, 2005 - Political progress in Iraq and Afghanistan will end the insurgencies in those countries, but American and coalition troops will be needed to provide the security and stability for that progress to take place, said the nation’s highest-ranking military official July 12.

Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on PBS’ “The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer” that American servicemembers have been prepared to face the “challenging and thinking” adversary they face in the global war on terrorism.

Myers told host Lehrer that the insurgency in Iraq is dangerous, but he believes the insurgents are at the level of effort they are capable of. “We’re having pretty good success against pieces of this,” he said.

“Insurgencies take time to break,” Myers noted. “They’re broken by the political process. It’s my view that the driver now is the political process and the success that Iraq has in developing its constitution, referendum and then elections. That’s what’s going to beat the insurgency. ”

Until then, the coalition and Iraqi forces must go after the insurgents, especially those with worldwide connections. Jordanian-born al Qaeda in Iraq leader terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is one target. “We know he has instructions to work outside of Iraq, a very dangerous individual with very dangerous murdering associates,” Myers said.

The general told Lehrer to look at the big trends in Iraq. On the political front, Sunni Arabs have been brought in to the political process, and he considers that a very hopeful sign.

Iraqi security forces are building up and becoming more capable. They are shouldering a larger burden of the security effort in the country, he said.

“We haven’t had a major unit defect or fall-apart since the elections, and if you remember before that we had some issues with unit integrity and people leaving prematurely in tough situations,” he said. He attributes the success to leadership, equipment and training.

Infrastructure work is making some progress, but it will be slow going. “We’re still not going to meet the demand for electricity,” he said. Right now electricity is free in Iraq so, “there’s always going to be more of a demand than there is supply. ”

The infrastructure was in worse shape under Saddam than anyone imagined. It will take time to rehabilitate basic services.

snip…long and unrelated to infrastructure…

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Why Iraq oil money hasn’t fueled rebuilding

14 Jul 2005, CSMonitor

Smugglers and thieves are stealing profits from oil even as insurgents work to keep the nation unstable.

By Howard LaFranchi | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

WASHINGTON - First, the good news: With oil prices at record highs, Iraq is on track to bring in $20 billion or more in oil revenue this year.

That may sound like a lot of petrodollars, especially for a war-torn country with tremendous needs in infrastructure repair and services delivery.

But the bad news is that very little, if any, of that money will actually be used in the country’s stalled reconstruction - despite past lofty predictions that oil-rich Iraq would be financially self-sufficient by now.

Dealing with Iraq’s insurgency is a chief reason for the gap between oil revenues and improving living conditions. But another reason for the lag is a growing problem of income loss from smuggling and outright theft of the revenues.

One worrisome consequence of the inability to turn higher oil revenues into street-level improvements is the impact on the Iraqi public’s faith in the country’s new government and direction.

“The insurgents know that oil is the lifeblood of the Iraqi economy, and that keeping it from improving daily life is key to building up the frustration and sense of helplessness and lack of faith in the new government - all of which they are out to encourage,” says Gal Luft, codirector of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security in Washington. “Unfortunately, I don’t see the government taking advantage of what should be a good time for an oil-producing country to make some money and move forward.”

As the country with the world’s second-largest known oil reserves, Iraq should be sitting pretty at a time of $60-a-barrel oil, analysts say. But they quickly add that Iraq’s potential has been tamped down by a continuing failure to invest in renewing the country’s decrepit oil infrastructure and an ill-conceived strategy of placing exports above oil-field modernization.

In addition, some experts say that the problem of petroleum-products smuggling and oil- revenue theft is increasing as the highly centralized and dictatorial regime of Saddam Hussein is replaced by one with less authoritative control and more room for tribal and partisan interests.

“In many cases, the technocrats are no longer in charge, so you have a lot of potential for partisanship and local interests to win out over the common national good,” says Jamal Qureshi, an oil-market analyst with PFC Energy, an international consulting firm.

Mr. Qureshi says that most of Iraq’s oil income will pay for a national budget of about $18 billion - about 80 percent of which is earmarked for government salaries, food and fuel subsidies, pensions, and other government operating costs. That leaves little money, even without considering the rising problem of oil-revenue theft, for reconstruction needs.

After Bush administration officials originally predicted that Iraq would be able to meet its own postwar reconstruction needs within months, another scenario emerged. In the fall of 2003, the United Nations and World Bank estimated that essential reconstruction over the next four years in Iraq would cost $55 billion. Of that amount, the State Department says in its Iraq country report that the US has already appropriated $21 billion, with other substantial amounts coming from international development institutions and other pledges.

Qureshi says the early rosy predictions of Iraq’s ability to rebuild itself were “always off base,” but he adds that the country should be able to take on more of the burden - if it weren’t losing potential revenues.

He estimates that perhaps 5 percent of oil revenues are being lost to theft and product smuggling, although estimates from other experts range much higher.

Recently, for example, hundreds of millions of dollars in oil revenues were found after they were “misplaced” in unauthorized Iraqi and Jordanian bank accounts, according to some press reports.

The artificially low prices that the government keeps on gasoline and other products inside the country are one reason for the rampant smuggling of such products. Entire smuggling rings have developed around delivering subsidized products to neighboring countries where prices are higher. At the same time, many Iraqis are willing to pay a premium for black-market gas to avoid long and sometimes dangerous lines at gas stations.

Mr. Luft of Global Security says it shouldn’t surprise anyone that such corruption and profiteering are flourishing in a traditional tribal society - especially one recently released from the ties of a dictatorial regime. “Corruption will always be part of tribal societies,” he says. “There is no allegiance to the state.”

Luft also says that his institute’s tracking of attacks on oil infrastructure shows a shift in targets - from export-oriented installations like pipelines to power plants and other facilities for domestic energy production. The aim: to dim any public confidence in the government’s ability to meet its needs.

But experts emphasize that some of the oil sector’s problems have nothing to do with insurgents. The state is placing revenue production over maintenance and modernization, they say, risking long-term damage to oil fields. For example, water-injection systems that extend a well’s production life are not being kept up in the major southern oil field. Even the State Department has recently red-flagged this and similar problems in Iraq’s oil sector.

The failings of Iraq’s oil sector are of international concern, experts note, in part because lost production there contributes to a higher price tag on a barrel of oil. “Iraq is a big enough player in the international market that better performance there would have had an impact on price increases,” says Qureshi of PFC Energy.

Driving oil prices higher is apparently another objective of Iraq’s insurgents. “I’ve seen it on websites affiliated with the insurgency - the praising of attacks on facilities as a way to drive oil prices up and thus hurt the US and Western economies,” says Luft. “Coupled with the goal of raising the Iraqi public’s frustrations, they see these attacks as a way to kill two birds with one stone.”

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Iraq tells donors graft undermining rebuilding

18 Jul 2005

By Suleiman al-Khalidi and Khaled Yacoub Oweis

DEAD SEA, Jordan, July 18 (Reuters) - Iraq gave donors a list of its most urgent rebuilding projects on Monday, admitting that corruption, as well as violence, has been delaying the country’s reconstruction.

Only a small amount of the billions of dollars pledged to help rebuild Iraq have been spent because of concerns about graft and mismanagement and because of disruption from anti-U.S. insurgents targeting efforts to revive the economy.

Iraq presented the conference with an updated version of the projects it hopes to finance in a document called the National Development Strategy, an overview of the most pressing needs.

Iraqi officials say the list covers sectors which have been a priority for years including oil facilities, water and sanitation, sewage and power generation.

“We have serious problem with corruption and I think all of us must recognise it as a serious threat,” Iraqi Planning Minister Barham Salih said.

“We have to provide the donor community with a transparent and streamlined process by which these programmes reach the people they are intended to reach,” he said.

Representatives from around 60 countries and international organisations, including some that opposed the U.S.-led invasion, gathered in the Dead Sea resort to follow up on meetings in Madrid and Tokyo over the last two years at which they pledged $14 billion.

“The conference will accelerate the flow of funds from the donors and make sure that the commitments they have made in Madrid are kept,” Finance Minister Ali Allawi told Reuters.

In a sign that aid might be flowing more easily, World Bank officials told Reuters the Bank has extended a $500 million soft loan for Iraq for infrastructure projects with an interest-free grace period of over 10 years.

MOBILISATION

The loan is the first World Bank lending to Iraq since 1973. The Bank already manages $400 million of donor money to Iraq. The United Nations manages another $500 million.

“It is very important to continue to mobilise additional resources but it is also very important that we accelerate the implementation of what we have,” Christiaan Poortman, World Bank’s Vice President for the Middle East, told Reuters.

“This has been a successful conference. We also talked about a new mechanism of donor coordination that would be actually led by Iraqis,” he later told reporters.

Staffan Demistura, deputy special representative for the U.N. secretary-general in Iraq, told Reuters the international community wanted a “clear idea” from Iraq of its priorities.

“The next six months are critical. We aim at concrete, immediate impact. Donors will be more receptive if they hear that Iraqis have come up with top priorities and they are do-able and concrete,” the U.N. official said.

Concerns about the sustainability of the post Saddam Hussein political system, violence and widespread corruption have led donors to be cautious about implementing their pledges.

Iraq’s economy continues to suffer in the meantime. Iraq’s central bank chief economist Mudhir Salih Kasim says basic services, such as water and electricity, are in their worst state in decades.

Iraqi officials say the country can now handle aid flows better because it is tackling corruption. They have also been urging donors to set up offices in Iraq, instead of handling aid through meetings outside Iraq.

Little of the $14 billion in non-U.S. aid pledges made so far has been spent. The United States separately allocated more than $18 billion, but progress on American funded projects in Iraq has been also slow with flows diverted to security.

Only a few hundred million dollars of the non-U.S. aid pledges have been spent, mainly to buy school supplies and help train government workers abroad.

Reconstruction is faltering with basic infrastructure projects in electricity and sewage systems far behind schedule.

Iraq has the world’s second largest oil reserves. But its infrastructure and living standards have been shredded by crushing U.N. sanctions from 1990-2003 and three wars in the past quarter of a century.

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Iran building new Iraqi hospitals

BBC Monitoring Middle East. London: 16 Jul 2005

Al-Zaman, Baghdad, in Arabic 9 Jun 2005

(the first part of this article was deleted)

On another level, the administrative undersecretary of the Ministry of Health, Dr Jalil al-Shamari, announced that Iran “has expressed its willingness to provide material support to Iraq totalling some 15m dollars for the construction of hospitals in Al- Najaf and Karbala and another hospital in Sadr City”. Al-Shamari explained that the Iranian side, which had received the Iraqi delegation participating in the ninth international exposition of the medical and [therapeutic] supplies industry that was held in Iran recently, “also expressed its willingness to provide humanitarian assistance of medicines and medical supplies. This is to ensure the standard of medical services in Iraq is raised and the training of Iraqi medical basics.”

He advised: “The Iraqi delegation was received by the Iranian Minister of Health in order to discuss ways of bilateral cooperation in medical areas and the possibility of transferring Iraqi patients who cannot receive their medical treatment inside Iraq to Iranian hospitals.”

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Millions in Iraq vaccinated against polio

AFP

17 Jul 2005

The United Nations has vaccinated nearly 5 million Iraqi children against polio, spurring parents on to clinics using mobile phone text messages, a statement says.

“In recent weeks, the UN worked to vaccinate 4.7 million Iraqi children five years and under … as part of a series of initiatives aimed at bolstering health among the population,” the statement in the Jordanian capital, Amman, said on Sunday.

In an effort to reach the largest number of people, the UN, with the support of private mobile phone service providers, sent text messages to announce the polio immunisation campaign.

“This support by private companies demonstrated the spirit of corporate civil responsibility emerging in Iraq,” the statement said on the eve of a two-day international donors’ conference hosted by Jordan.

Campaign

According to the UN, an “alarming rise in the incidence of polio cases in nearby Yemen” prompted the immunisation campaign across Iraq.

“With considerable numbers of people moving across that country’s border (Yemen) with Saudi Arabia, health officials warn of a growing potential for the disease to be ‘imported’ to Iraq,” the statement said.

The UN donated more than 10 million doses of oral polio vaccine to Iraq over the past year as part of a nationwide drive to rehabilitate the health sector in the violence-ridden country.

The UN and the World Bank administer a $1 billion trust fund for Iraq set up by international donors to rebuild the country.