Medical Teams Probe 70 Children’s Deaths

The U.N. World Health Organization and Afghan medical teams were dispatched to a remote part of northern Afghanistan to investigate reports that as many as 70 children have died of an unknown disease, a United Nations spokeswoman said.

The illness, which reportedly killed the children in a single week in Badakhshan province, was likely to be whooping cough or diphtheria, she said.

Medical teams and supplies were dispatched from Kabul, the capital, and the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif. They will be sent by plane or horseback, depending on conditions in the area.