02 Cholera epidemic in Baghdad.pmd

1Department of Medicine; 2Department of Community Medicine, College of Medicine, University of Baghdad, Baghdad, Iraq (Correspondence to A.M. Al-Abbassi: [email protected]). Received: 26/06/02; accepted: 15/09/04 ABSTRACT An epidemic of cholera in Iraq was anticipated for the year 1999 and a plan of notification and treatment of cases of diarrhoea was made. This paper documents the clinical and bacteriological profile of cholera cases admitted to the 6 hospitals in Baghdad during the epidemic. The number of stool culturepositive cases was 874. The peak incidence of cases (June 1999) was earlier than previous epidemics with no cases registered in November/December 1999. All age groups were affected and the case fatality rate was 1.3%. Strains isolated were Vibrio cholerae El-Tor O1, serotypes Ogawa (79.6%) and Inaba (12.1%), V. parahaemolyticus (2.0%) and non-agglutinable vibrios (6.1%). V. cholerae O139 was isolated from 2 cases (0.2%) for the first time in Iraq. Antibiotic resistance was noted, especially to tetracycline.