Iraq starts children's vaccination campaign

The Iraqi Ministry of Health, in collaboration with the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) on Tuesday started a general vaccination campaign to vaccinate some 3.5 million Iraqi children under the age of five against Polio.

On March 13, the Iraqi minister of health Omid Midhat Mubarak said that this very campaign will be followed by another one on April 26 against the same disease.

On Sunday, the Iraqi Health Ministry said that more than 9,000 Iraqis died in February 2000 because of the embargo imposed on Iraq, a matter which raises the number of people who died to 1,283,118 persons since starting implementation of the sanctions in 1990.