Protests over health chief as cholera hits Basra

A total of 17 confirmed cases of cholera were reported yesterday by the World Health Organisation in the southern Iraqi city of Basra.

The number of confirmed cholera cases pointed to a probable outbreak of the waterborne disease among "several hundreds of people", the World Health Organisation said. The city's water treatment system shut down after US-led air strikes damaged the electric grid, leaving large parts of the city without clean water for several weeks.

Meanwhile, doctors in Baghdad angrily confronted the new head of the Health Ministry, formerly a prominent member of Saddam Hussein's regime, in protest at his appointment.

Doctors wearing their white coats peeled off from a demonstration of around 400 colleagues to hold heated exchanges with Ali Shnan al-Janabi, who was number three at the Health Ministry under President Saddam and has been appointed by the US-led Organisation of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Affairs to head the ministry.

Imad Saud, a resident in cardiothoracic surgery, said: "Before the war, al-Janabi "was a faithful servant of Saddam. How can we trust him?"