LONDON, November 30 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - The US-led war on Iraq has caused a public health disaster that has left the country's medical system in tatters and increased the risk of disease and death, according to a report released Tuesday, November 30, by a British medical charity.

Medact said cases of vaccine-preventable diseases were rising and relief and reconstruction work had been mismanaged, Reuters news agency reported.

“The health of the Iraqi people has deteriorated since the 2003 invasion,” Gill Reeve, the deputy director of Medact, told a news conference marking the launch of the report, which is based on interviews in Jordan with Iraqi civilians, relief organizations and health professionals who worked in Iraq,

“Immediate action is needed to halt this health disaster,” he said.

The report details a recurrence of previously well-controlled illnesses like diarrhea, acute respiratory infections and typhoid.

It blamed the poor health services for chronic under-funding, torn physical infrastructure, mismanagement of supplies and staff shortages.

“One in four people in Iraq still depend on food aid and more children are underweight or chronically malnourished than in 2000,” it said.

It noted that a lot of money had been pledged for reconstruction but very little had been spent to rebuild the Iraqi health system.

The report called on Britain to set up an independent commission to investigate civilian casualties and to provide emergency relief and a better health system.

It said that the indiscriminate US raids into Iraqi cities have added insult to injury, urging the occupation forces to re-evaluate the impact of weapons used in populated areas across the country.

“We hope that by highlighting health we can make sure that all sides in the conflict know the price the civilian population is paying for the ongoing violence,” Mike Rowson, the executive director of Medact, told Reuters.

The report said that twelve percent of Iraq's hospitals were damaged during the war and the country's two main public health laboratories were also destroyed.

“The 2003 war exacerbated the threats to health posed by the damage inflicted by previous wars, tyranny and sanctions. It not only created the conditions for further health decline, but also damaged the ability of Iraqi society to reverse it,” it said.

Amnesty International in September harshly criticized  the United Stat for killing dozens of civilians in a number of deadly consecutive air strikes into the war-battered city of Fallujah.

“Amnesty International is calling for an inquiry into recent attacks in which civilians were killed in Iraq in circumstances which may have violated international law,” the London-based watchdog had said in a press release.

On September 9, press reports and medical sources said that women and children  were among 12 people killed in an also overnight US missile strike on Fallujah.

Postwar security worries limit access to health care, particularly in flashpoint areas, the report added.

“The UN, traditionally responsible for coordinating humanitarian crisis responses, has been marginalized while US assistance has been characterized by damaging political in-fighting,” it said.

Formed in 1992, Medact  is a global health charity tackling issues at the centre of international policy debates.