IRAQ: Child mortality rates finally dropping

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

BAGHDAD, 30 Aug 2005 (IRIN) - While the health situation for Iraqi children remains perilous, reports from the Ministry of Health and Environment indicate that the last year has witnessed an important drop in rates of disease among children under five, particularly for cholera and diarrhoea.

"Things are better now especially after we have received aid from international organisations to support child health and to rebuild our health infrastructure," acting Minister of Health Nermeen Osman told IRIN.

The Health Ministry is currently implementing a new US $3.5 million programme with help from UNICEF and the WHO to decrease mortality rates among children by the end of 2006, said ministry spokesman Qasem al-Dulaimi.

The programme began last August and after one year in operation, the ministry reports impressive results but has yet to release numbers. Staff has been trained on the types of food and medication which can help malnourished children and prevent cholera and diarrhoea.

Reports by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and UNICEF in July 2004 said that the health situation of children in Iraq was serious and a break down in social services was leading to illness among the young.

The issue of child mortality has long had a political element to it in Iraq, especially under the rule of Saddam Hussein during the period of UN sanctions on the country.

An August report by the Ministry of Health says that Saddam Hussein over-reported the number of children who died from 1992-2003 for political ends.

According to al-Dulaimi of the Health Ministry, the real figure for child mortality during the sanctions era was 870,240, rather than the 3 million reported by Hussein.

"Saddam Hussein used child mortality in a political game," al-Dulaimi said.

The UN imposed sanctions on Iraq in 1991 after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. A figure of 5,900 deaths of children under the age of five every month, was reported by the old regime, according to local officials.

"It was an exaggerated number fabricated during Saddam Hussein’s rule for political gain to draw the international committee’s attention to the sanctions," Osman noted.

The child mortality rate for under fives between, 1989-2003, was 40 cases per every 1,000, according to another survey developed by the Ministry of Planning and Development cooperation in partnership with United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and published in May 2005.

In response to Saddam’s statistics, the World Health Organization (WHO) printed a report in 1995, showing an average of 4,500 deaths among children in the country every month.

But according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), reports during the last eight years of the sanctions showed that half million children in that age group were registered dead, due to poor nutrition and bad health conditions.

Many children died from diarrhoea and cholera, caused by unsafe drinking water along with other deadly diseases such as diphtheria and measles.

[ENDS]