Shhhhhhhhhhh.............the press doesn't know about the WMD's in Iraq.
Six die as suspicions of anthrax mount in northern city (Iraq) iraq press ^ | 5/12/04
Posted on 05/12/2004 9:01:55 PM EDT by knak
Mosul, Iraq Press, May 11, 2004 –Six people have died and many other are taken ill due to a disease whose symptoms doctors say resemble those caused by anthrax, according to hospital sources.
The sources, refusing to be named, said doctors in the Republican Hospital, the largest medical center in northern Iraq, suspect that the victims were exposed to anthrax.
They said a whole wing of the sprawling hospital has been cordoned off as doctors fear the disease might spread to other patients.
The sources said the doctors suspect that a patient brought to hospital two weeks ago was the cause of the disease. Anthrax spreads quickly and the six patients were said to have caught the disease as they were being treated for other ailments in the hospital.
The patient who the doctors believe brought the anthrax was a shepherd and had already died, the sources said. The hospital lacks means to battle the deadly disease. But the medical staff and support personnel have already been inoculated against anthrax, they said.
There is much confusion in the hospital, the sources said. Hospital officials have declined comment and would not go into details when asked about the causes of the latest deaths.
Iraq had confirmed that it made anthrax in the 1980s along with other germ warfare agents. The former regime produced weapons-grade dry anthrax powder which it claimed to have unilaterally destroyed.
UN weapons inspectors failed to get conclusive evidence that Iraq had scrapped its biological warfare program on its own. US-led weapons experts have so far failed to uncover any germ warfare agents.