Iraq: time to focus our response
- International Health and Medical Education Centre, University College London, London N19 5LW, UK
- Correspondence to: Dr J J Miranda; j.miranda{at}ucl.ac.uk
- Received 31 March 2003
- Accepted 1 April 2003
During the preparation of this piece, the newspaper headline on that day’s cover story was “52 die in Baghdad market blast . . .US declines to comment”. The death toll after this attack was put at 58.1 The media have provided vast coverage of the attacks so far but, in doing so, have perhaps diverted our attention away from longer term health impacts.
Over the past few months a strong and steady expression of alarm about the humanitarian consequences of conflict in Iraq has come from the medical profession.2,3 The latest report on the health impacts of war in the Gulf has come from the WHO, and is a graphic illustration of the need for concern.4 Deterioration in public utilities, transport and health infrastructures over the past 12 years have resulted in the vulnerability of the Iraqi people being much higher now than at the start of the 1991 Gulf war. Expected mortality rate …
