IRAQ - May 7 - Doctors Report Cholera Outbreak.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) says in a statement that doctors in Basra have reported 11 cases of cholera and there can be dozens more due to contaminated water supplies and poor sanitation. The statement says: "Sewage is not being disposed of, garbage collection is happening intermittently or not at all and people are using water from the polluted Shatt Al Arab river". Doctors at Al Tahrir Teaching Hospital and the Basra Children's Hospital reported seven and four cases of the highly contagious disease respectively. Results of tests to verify the doctors' diagnoses are due back in the coming days. The WHO said the laboratory tests had to be carried out in neighbouring Kuwait because the hospitals' own equipment was looted in the breakdown of law and order that followed the war.