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November 1, 2002

INTERNATIONAL IMMUNIZATION NEWS

"UN Says Disease Outbreak Kills 61 Afghan Children"

Reuters (www.reuters.com) (10/31/02)

A suspected outbreak of whooping cough in the remote Darwaz area of Afghanistan's Badakhshan province took the lives of 61 children over a four-week period and another 68 children have reported similar symptoms, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).  WHO spokeswoman Loretta Hieber Girardet noted that the patients experienced shortness of breath, coughing, fever, and bleeding from the nose.  Girardet said that the presumptive diagnosis is whooping cough, although other diagnoses, such as diphtheria, have not yet been eliminated.

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