Bird Flu Appears in Iraq

The (perhaps unnecessarily) dreaded bird flu has killed it's first victims in Iraq, a nation which is not currently ranked among the best for health care infrastructure.

Iraqi Health Minister Abdul Mutalib Ali Mohammed Salih said Monday that a 14-year-old girl who died almost two weeks ago in the northern city of Sulaymaniyah was found to have been infected with bird flu.

The girl, Tijan Abdel Qadr, died after experiencing severe respiratory symptoms consistent with those present in the disease that has killed more than 80 people, the vast majority in Asia, since it was first diagnosed in 2003. Medical scientists fear that if left unchecked, the disease could spread to broad swaths of the global population.

The security situation cannot be conducive to dealing with an Avian Flu outbreak.

Mohammed Khoshnaw, health minister for the Kurdistan regional government, said doctors suspected at least two more people currently in a local hospital could be infected. A doctor at the Ranya hospital, northwest of Sulaymaniyah, confirmed that two women there presented symptoms of the disease.

The WHO, which is sending a team to Iraq for further investigation, told Reuters it is also testing the infected girl's uncle, who died after experiencing the same symptoms.

Yet another consequence of an unnecessary war.