Quenching Thirst Gets More Dangerous in Iraq (Typhoid and hepatitis E)

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-disease4aug04,1,7266866,print.story?coll=la-home-headlines

The price of bicycle pumps has more than quadrupled in Sadr City, for reasons that have nothing to do with cycling. Residents of Baghdad's worst slum use them to coax water from the district's battered supply lines. It's either that or use their mouths like they're siphoning gas.

But there's a problem -- the water is making them sick.

Typhoid and hepatitis E are running rampant through Sadr City this summer, as residents rely heavily on a sewage-tainted water supply to endure temperatures of 115 degrees and up. The outbreak has strained local healthcare facilities and left Health Ministry officials able to only guess at the scope of the problem.

The increase in typhoid (known as "tee-pho" here) is a regular summer occurrence in Iraq because of increased water consumption, but officials say this year's infection rates are much higher than usual. Hepatitis E, although present in the country for decades, is more rare.

shoe factory. Conditions are just about right.

About 10 years ago, I thought there were only Hepatitis A and B. Then I heard about C, then D, now E? Damn.

When I took heath and safety classes
the universal precautions are mostly
for Hepatitis . HIV is actually quite fragile
in air and doesn't survive long , where hepatistis
lives dried for a long time .

and by now they might well have discovered vitamins "W,X,Y and Z" if they hadn't got sidetracked, and digressed into this "B-1 thru 12" business.

Why couldn't they have just named "Vitamin B-2" "Vitamin F?" I can't explain it, but trust me, if I had ever gotten into a position of authority, you can rest assured, vitamins would have been lettered sequentially, just like hepatitis.

Will future liver diseases have new letters to go with increasingly exotic symptoms?

Maybe with hepatitis "Q" you'll turn yellow and all your hair will fall out. Maybe with hep "O" people will become extremely obese, and perhaps with hep "Z" we'll turn from yellow to purple, and bleed from every orifice. I don't know, I'm not a doctor.

restoring basic services.

Even with the sanctions. Providing clean water is perhaps the most basic function of government, and has been for thousands of years. Governments are judged by how well they succeed at this fundamental task - the occupation government and associated puppets seem to be failing miserably.

don't they know that they are "liberated"?