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Fear of epidemics in Iraq

BAGHDAD APRIL 23. Jumping for joy, the 42-year-old mother of three hit the switch and screamed. "Electricity is here!" neighbours shouted, as women ran outside their houses to cheer, and men to shoot in the air.

Baghdad celebrated the beginning of the end on Tuesday of a devastating 3-week-old power outage. But more than 80 per cent of the city remained in darkness — and doctors reported the first suspected cases of feared epidemics of cholera and typhoid, with no clean water yet running.

Fifty- to 60 per cent of the children brought in for treatment at the city's Al-Iskan hospital were suffering from dehydration and diarrhoea caused by bad sanitation and water, said Dr. Ahmed Abdul Fattah, the hospital's assistant director.

Doctors suspected hundreds of the children had cholera and typhoid, but with no labs fully working, and most U.N. health workers having fled, hard-pressed physicians said they could only treat the cases, not confirm them.

Despite a lack of power, water and phones — in addition to shuttered shops, hours-long lines at gas stations and closed schools — Baghdad's people on Tuesday showed signs of bouncing back from the U.S. invasion and the mob pillaging and burning that followed the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime.In crowded streets, pickups of families returning from wartime havens in the countryside scraped up against trucks ferrying oranges to market.

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