Iraqi Deputy Health Minister Essam Namiq Abdullah said senior healthcare professionals had expressed hesitation about returning to their home country due to the volatile security situation, but recent improvements allayed many of their concerns, the United Nations' Integrated Regional Information Networks reported.

"We have e-mailed all the physicians who fled Iraq because of the deteriorated security situation, (asking them) to return and develop the health service, after remarkable progress in the security situation," he said.

The deputy minister said Baghdad developed an incentives program to provide travel reimbursements and housing for doctors to return to key medical facilities in the capital.

Over 165 Iraqi doctors have returned to work in the past month, and Abdullah said his ministry forecast a return of some 90 percent of the voluntarily displaced doctors by the end of the year.

"Since the beginning of this year, we have managed to overcome about 50 percent of the problems we faced in the past," he said.