DATE=4/5/2000
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=IRAQ / HEALTH (L ONLY)
NUMBER=2-260970
BYLINE=LISA SCHLEIN
DATELINE=GENEVA
CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO:  Iraq's health minister says the U-N economic 
embargo is devastating Iraq's health system and has 
caused a serious deterioration in the well-being of 
the Iraqi people.  Lisa Schlein in Geneva reports the 
Iraqi official calls the sanctions a violation of 
human rights and has urged the U-N Human Rights 
Commission to push for an end to the embargo.

TEXT:  Iraqi health minister Oumid Midhat Mubarak says 
there has been a dramatic change for the worse in the 
health of the Iraqi people since the U-N embargo was 
imposed nearly 10-years ago. 

He says that before the embargo, Iraq's infant 
mortality rate had been reduced to 42 for every one-
thousand live births.  He says a recent report by the 
U-N Children's Fund, UNICEF, shows the figure has more 
than doubled.  

He says the statistics on deaths of children under the 
age of five are worse.  He says before the embargo, an 
average of 540 Iraqi children under age five died each 
month.  He says the number now is an average of eight-
thousand-500 child deaths each month.

            /// MUBARAK ACT ///

      The problem is not with the shortages of 
      medicine or appliances or instruments alone in 
      the hospitals, which are 30-thousand beds 
      distributed among Iraq without any 
      discrimination.  What is important for us now is 
      to rehabilitate these hospitals.  The memorandum 
      of understanding, which is called oil against 
      food and medicine, is not allowing us to 
      rehabilitate these hospitals. 

            /// END ACT ///

The U-N oil-for-food program allows Iraq to sell oil, 
with money going for humanitarian programs and for 
Gulf war reparations. 

Mr. Mubarak accuses the United States and Britain of 
denying or suspending contracts for the purchase of 
essential equipment to repair hospitals, sewage 
plants, and other facilities.  The Iraqi health 
minister says that as a result the number of 
infectious diseases has been increasing, and diseases 
which did not exist before the embargo are now 
appearing.  

He says an even more serious problem is the appearance 
of illness linked to what he calls the use of depleted 
uranium during the Gulf War. 

            /// MUBARAK ACT TWO ///

      We are increasingly detecting cases of 
      leukemias, lymphomas, congenital abnormalities, 
      neuropathies, mylopathies, and unexplained 
      abortions with some other vague symptoms. 

            /// END ACT ///

Mr. Mubarak says Iraq depends on sophisticated 
equipment from abroad to get its health and sanitation 
facilities functioning.  He says that if Iraq were to 
get the money it needs to buy machines and parts, the 
country would be able to rehabilitate its health 
system within a matter of months, not years.   
(SIGNED)

NEB/LS/JWH/RAE



05-Apr-2000 10:46 AM EDT (05-Apr-2000 1446 UTC)
NNNN

Source: Voice of America
.