WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION FINDS HEALTH CONDITIONS IN IRAQ 'SERIOUS'
Press Release
H/2904
WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION FINDS HEALTH CONDITIONS IN IRAQ 'SERIOUS'
19960325 GENEVA, 25 March (WHO) -- A report by the World Health Organization (WHO) on the situation in Iraq, released here today, has found that health conditions inside that country are deteriorating at an alarming rate under the sanctions regime, and that the United Nations humanitarian programme for Iraq lacks sufficient resources to cope with the growing problems.Five years after the Persian Gulf war, the vast majority of Iraqis continue to survive on a semi-starvation diet due to chronic shortages of both food and cash to buy it. Food prices have risen phenomenally, with most items costing several hundred times more on the open market compared to pre-war levels.
According to the WHO report, ad hoc surveys in various parts of the country indicate that malnutrition among young children is now widespread. Common symptoms include nutritional anaemia, vitamin A deficiency and protein- energy malnutrition.
The damaging effects of poor nutrition are being compounded by epidemics of malaria, cholera, typhoid and other infectious diseases, and by a precipitous decline in health care, which the war and its aftermath have set back at least 50 years. The country's expanded programme on immunization has been completely disrupted, leading to increases in many vaccine-preventable diseases.
The most visible impact of these problems is seen in the dramatic rise of mortality rates among infants and children.
From 1990 to 1994, mortality in children less than five years of age increased more than 600 per cent, according to Ministry of Health data covering 15 of the country's 18 governorates. In the capital city of Baghdad, infant mortality rates have doubled. There are no reliable figures on maternal mortality, but what information is available indicates that it too has increased several fold.
During the same 1990-1994 period, the Ministry reported a nearly 500 per cent increase in the occurrence of low birth weight infants, a category which now includes more than one in five newborns. The increase is closely linked with the spreading epidemic of malaria, which can lead to a number of pregnancy-related morbidities and is a powerful determinant of low birth weight.
- 2 - Press Release H/2904 25 March 1996
From 1990 to 1994, the yearly incidence of malaria in three northern governorates of Iraq, where the disease is endemic, exploded from 95 cases per 100,000 population to nearly 2,600. The epidemic has spread to other areas of the country that before the war were malaria free. The WHO and the European Union have raised special funds to help control the outbreak.
The WHO report on Iraq is based on analysis of epidemiological data collected by the Government, supplemented by surveys and studies carried out by WHO, other United Nations agencies and non-governmental organizations.
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