Geneva: The World Health Organization (WHO) announced that it would start vaccine treatments for cholera beginning this weekend to prevent further outbreaks in Iraq.
WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier told the regular press briefing in Geneva, Switzerland, that the latest laboratory tests had confirmed 1,942 cases and two deaths in 15 out of 18 governorates in Iraq.
"On 31 October, WHO will begin, in conjunction with the Ministry of Health, the oral cholera vaccine treatment, and will use 510,000 of the global stock pile to ensure that 255,000 internally displaced persons and refugees in the affected areas will receive two doses," the spokesperson said.
Lindmeier said "while this number of vaccines was not enough to vaccinate everyone, it should, however, be a strategic vaccination to block the path of the disease and prevent further outbreaks."
In addition to the vaccine campaign, diarrhoeal disease kits and 600,000 chlorine tablets had been distributed in the infected areas, 48 national health staff had been trained in cholera and laboratory procedures, and a team of international experts have been deployed to assist the Iraqi's Ministry of Health, he said.
Cholera is an acute diarrhoeal infection caused by ingestion of food or water contaminated with the bacterium Vibrio cholerae.
QNA
