Doctors Probe Afghan Child Deaths

KABUL, Afghanistan- The World Health Organization and Afghan medical teams were sent to northern Afghanistan on Thursday to investigate reports that 70 children died there in one week after falling ill, a U.N. spokeswoman said.

WHO spokeswoman Loretta Hieber Girardet said the illness was likely to be whooping cough or diphtheria. Those affected lived in remote Badakshan province, she said.

"The reports that we've heard came from local commanders who directed a message to the governor of Badakshan reporting that 70 children had died due to coughing and suffocation," Girardet said.

Measles was also possible, but Girardet said that was unlikely because many children in the area had been vaccinated against the disease.

Medical teams and supplies from the Ministry of Health and WHO were dispatched from Kabul and the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif on Thursday, and another team left earlier, Girardet said. They will travel by plane or horseback.

Whooping cough and diphtheria are infectious diseases that can be prevented by vaccines. However, Girardet said 70 percent of Afghans have no access to medical care.

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