The International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh, an international health research institution located in Dhaka, has extended its support to the World Health Organization (WHO) to carry out a cholera risk assessment among the Syrian refugees in the Kurdistan Region in northern Iraq.
A three-member ICDDR,B team under the 'Mission Iraq August 2013' reached Iraq on July 28 to help the WHO conduct the cholera risk assessment, according to a web-post of the ICDDR,B.
The current humanitarian crisis in Syria poses a grave risk of epidemics among the Syrian refugees spread out across the countries sharing its borders.
Clinicians Dr Md Azharul Islam Khan and Dr Ramendra Nath Mazumder and microbiologist Dr Md Sirajul Islam are the members of a larger team formed by WHO's Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN) in response to the invitation by the Ministry of Health of the Kurdistan Regional Government.
The ICDDR,B team is assisting the WHO and the Department of Health officials in Duhok and Erbil, the capital of Kurdistan Regional Government, in improving public health preparedness.
