“Raghed Sarmad, 32, and her two children, aged seven and eight, spend their days scavenging through piles of rubbish in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, in search of anything they can sell for food. She prefers medical waste, because there is a greater chance of finding items of some value.

“There isn’t much blood in the rubbish [so it’s safe]. We find some good metal things which we can sell in the market. Some people buy syringes with needles from us. I don’t think the needles can harm us because they must have been sterilized already,” Sarmad told IRIN while rummaging through medical waste left near the main gate of Baghdad’s Yarmouk Hospital.

“Many hospitals in Baghdad leave their medical waste for collection at their main gates. They used to burn this waste, but no longer do so because of a lack of fuel. Compounding this health hazard is the fact that insecurity has led dwindling numbers of refuse collectors to work ever more sporadically.

http://www.irinnews.org/report/71225/iraq-medical-waste-a-growing-health-hazard

Such is life in Iraq. If we condemn the situation but dismiss it as a consequence of tyranny and war, extremism and terrorism then we fool ourselves in a belief that this is a unique situation to be found only in Iraq.

No so. It is typical of many countries across the entire region. From the middle East through the ISC and much of Asia as well as some areas of Africa and South America.