Corrupt Health Ministry to tackle cholera outbreak in Iraq

A cholera pandemic in Northern Iraq has infected 7,000 people:

The World Health Organisation reported on Tuesday that theepidemic was concentrated in the northern regions of Kirkuk andSulaimaniya and that 10 people were known to have died.

And it is moving southbound, closer to Baghdad:

Most significant, Dr Hakki said, were two cases in a village onthe border between Kirkuk and Diyala provinces, one involving ayoung girl. Baghdad is next to Diyala.

Iraq's Ministry of Health will be in charge of containing this outbreak.  The problem, as you might have guessed, is that the Health Ministry is unequipped and too corrupt to deal with this situation responsibly.  According to a US Embassy report released late last month, corruption inside the Health Ministry is so ramped that it is "affecting its ability to deliver services."  So what about the inspector general?  He lacks the authority and is "completely ill-equipped" to handle it.

The chaos and lack of oversight inside that ministry is not a new story.  Back in 2004, Iraqi police arrested a number of people suspected of stealing $10 million worth of medicine and selling it on the black market.

Comments

[granny]

This is so much grimmer, so much more horrible than the peripheral discussion of the competence of Iraq Health Ministry, that it boggles the mind at first impact.

We have done this.
This, too.
And this one can't be "surged" or "spun" or lied from a sow's ear into a silk purse. This country (Iraq) now has a Cholera epidemic:

(Read Wikipedia, and other sources:)

"In its most severe forms, cholera is one of the most rapidly fatal illnesses known: A healthy person may become hypotensive within an hour of the onset of symptoms and may die within 2-3 hours if no treatment is provided.[1] More commonly, the disease progresses from the first liquid stool to shock in 4-12 hours, with death following in 18 hours to several days without rehydration treatment.[2][3]"