Baghdad - Cholera caused by contaminated water has spread in the outskirts of Baghdad, a newspaper run by President Saddam Hussein's eldest son, Uday, said yesterday.
Nabdh al-Shabab weekly quoted Gen Ayad Ftayih al-Rawi, the governor of Baghdad, as saying that health authorities had taken rapid measures to fight the disease.
"Urgent measures have been taken such as providing drinking water in Abu Ghraib area where cholera has spread extensively," Rawi said. Iraq's health service and infrastructure, including water purification systems, have been damaged by stringent UN trade sanctions imposed since Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in August 1990.
Three people have died of cholera in Ghana's capital, Accra, in the past three days and 49 were in hospital yesterday, health officials said. A spokesman for the Koble Bu Teaching Hospital Polyclinic said it had been receiving an average of 16 people daily since the disease broke out last week, mainly in the city's slums.