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Medical aid rushed to remote Afghanistan
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The United States may have helped stem an outbreak of whooping cough in a remote area of northern Afghanistan. U.S. helicopters transported a team of medical personnel and supplies to the Darwooz district, where the outbreak had already killed about 70 children, U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld told reporters Monday. The aid was delivered last Monday in response to a request from the World Health Organization. "One hundred to 200 more could have died each week if untreated," Rumsfeld said. It normally takes at least three days on horseback to reach the isolated region, he said. "Since the vaccine has a shelf life of just two days when not refrigerated, it might well not have survived the trip." In all, 2,000 people were vaccinated, the defense secretary said. A spokesman for the World Health Organization said officials at its Geneva headquarters were not sure whether whooping cough, also known as pertussis, was the cause of the deaths. "As yet, I don't think there's laboratory confirmation that it is whooping cough," said Dick Thompson, a spokesman for the WHO. Pertussis is an infection of the respiratory tract caused by Bordetella pertussis bacteria, according to the American Medical Association. The highly contagious infection is treated with antibiotics, usually erythromycin.
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