Mysterious disease kills more than 300 children in Afghanistan

[rodbarnett]

ISLAMABAD, February 25 (Online): More than 300 children have died of a mysterious disease in Afghanistan's northern province of Badakhshan in less than a month, An Afghan news agency reported yesterday.

The agency quoted Shamsur Rehman, Deputy Governor of the province as saying that it appears to be a respiratory disease, which begins with flu but later chokes the breathing system of the children.

Rehman said the number of casualties might be higher but getting exact numbers was difficult in the remote and extremely cold region at the foot of the Hindukush mountains.

The official said the cities of Wakhan, Darwaz, Yaftal and Khwahan, bordering China and Tajikistan, have also been hit by the disease.

"Relief organizations and government officials are providing succour to the people in several disease-hit areas, but there are many places, which cannot be accessed without helicopters,'' Rehman told said agency.

He appealed to the World Health Organization and other international organizations to send medical and relief supplies to these areas to avoid "a worst-ever human catastrophe''

http://www.paktribune.com/news/print.php?id=56071&PHPSESSID=1c24f52273ae772322d59eaec0074bef

[DuctapeFatwa]

1. interesting related link inside

...And advanced forms of biological warfare
that can "target" specific genotypes may
transform biological warfare from the realm
of terror to a politically useful tool....


http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf

[Superfly]

2. Are you going to tell us that the US

is causing these deaths, as well?

[The Stranger]

9. Are you going to tell us that it is not?

[mobuto]

11. Yes I am

Absent any evidence to that effect, there seems no reason to blame the US for a respiratory disease in children. Unless you've forgotten, Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries on the planet and in extremely poor countries, children tend to die of disease. There is a very small contingent of posters on DU who tend to look for reasons to blame the United States for every evil in the world. That's just nuts.

[The Stranger]

13. You seem a little too certain.

The absence of evidence would call for not taking a position until further evidence is provided, examined and analyzed. The link provided to the newamericancentury web site is fascinating and should be addressed further.

If many of the posters on this web site had been told just a few years ago that a self-interested cabal would have taken control of the U.S. Government with the stated intent of conquering parts of the world militarily regardless of true national interests or any justification for such war, that this cabal openly advocated and wheedled the government into a costly war in Iraq on the basis of repeated lies about threats of weapons of mass destruction, that the government would begin spying on its citizens in secret in ways that even suprass the 1950's Red Scare in their insidiousness and with the added element of government technology, that the government would turn Guantanamo into an international holding pen for uncharged prisoners whose identities are unknown, and even state that it has the right to torture or summarily execute such unknown individuals, that the Government would repeatedly tell the people, even after misrepresenting past threats, that such procedures will continue indefinitely, for 30 years or more, and even be increased, strengthened or expanded, and if the Defense Department announced plans to initiate tactical nuclear weapons, numerous new weapons programs, and seek trillions in new money for this undeclared war on an unknown enemy, and receive it, perhaps these posters would think you are "nuts" as well for informing them of such things.

[Superfly]

14. All I have to say is....yeah, riiiiiiiight...

Color me skeptical, but I do not believe the government of this country is secretly waging secret wars around the country (in the interests of material wealth development) by administering children-killing flu viruses, polio vaccines laced with AIDS or sterilization drugs, or causing any of the myriad of other claims Ductape has made. And, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, I am taking this position and I am sticking to it....so there.

[reprobate]

27. Ask the GIs experimented on by the CIA in the 50s and 60s.

[Superfly]

29. Yeah, riiiiiiight....

[mobuto]

17. There's no evidence that Guatemala isn't responsible either

What a crock of shit. You're basing arguments on pure, uninformed conjecture. You don't even know what the disease is, let alone have any idea about the cause, and yet you're already itching to blame the United States. If you have any evidence at all of a connection, that's fine. But until then, I suggest you restrain yourself.

[The Stranger]

20. Easy there.

I was asking for evidence one way or the other. Don't speculate on what you think I am itching to do. If it's okay with you, some of us would like to see if there is anything to the post above. Perhaps it is you who needs to restrain him or herself.

[Ripley]

25. Why would Guatemala have interests in Afghanistan?

The US has a huge interest in Afghanistan since 9/11 and is supposedly conducting it's biggest manhunt in it's history. Bin Laden and associates lived in Afghan for years and are thought to still be there or very close by. I would not at all be surprised if some kind of biologicals were being used by our covert operatives in order to flush them out.

Of course there is no proof of that. But there is probably no "proof" that American male soldiers are raping American female soldiers in Iraq either.

You're awfully close to calling some of us "Blame America Firsters" which is code.

[mobuto]

10. The US is everywhere

we're sterilizing children in Northern Nigeria, giving them respiratory diseases in Afghanistan, and eating them in Haiti.

I can't find my glasses - they've probably been stolen by that nefarious American Government as well...



Some people are just idiots.

[bpilgrim]

31. true, and therefore does carry great responcibility

either directly or indirectly.

it's also TRUE that you have a penchant for calling fellow DU'ers names and apologizing for some of our greatest sins.

should you be called names for your beliefs?

i didn't think so.

:hi:

peace

[mmm]

23. I think the US may be testing their latest abomination

who would know? who would care?

[NNN0LHI]

3. Has Rumsfeld and Condi been handing out goodies to the kids again? n/t

[mac2]

4. This government says they're not against Islamic people....

but are killing a lot of them none-the-less. It's all a lie to kill as many as possible to get their resources and land.

Biological warfare was probably used. A lie just like they would free the Afghani women. They denied them to vote and positions in govenment. All lies.

What monsters these leaders of the Judo/Christian War are.

[noonwitch]

5. It might be Reye's syndrome

It comes on after a child has another virus-chickenpox, the flu, etc., especially if that child was given aspirin to treat the original virus.
Or it just could be some local flu variation like the one last fall that had so many kids sick here.

[mac2]

6. Do you think they can even afford Aspirin? They are educated..

enough to know the danger.

We had 2,000 people die in this country along the border of one state from a flu-virus, etc. Strange that it would happen there to just children?

Is it population control by Neo Cons?

[Suspicious]

7. I had Reye's as a child.

Reye's Syndrome is not respiratory in nature. It affects the function of internal organs, typically the liver and/or the brain.

[Snow]

15. Reye's syndrome looks more like arthritis, and

is pretty rare....

[JohnOneillsMemory]

8. Isn't it sad the first suspect we think of is the US Gov't? Justified n/t

[bleedingheart]

12. RSV is like this... both my kids were hospitalized with it.

[Snow]

16. Geez....a good friend of mine from grad school,

who has a masters' in toxicology and a PhD in epidemiology, is Afghan & from that area. He is currently the WHO officer on station in Peshawar. I don't know if he can safely go in there to investigate- kinda doubt it. He can send teams in though. I'll see if I can reach him.....

By the way, I like the respiratory syncitial virus call - that's what I'd think of first, also.

[mobuto]

18. Are WHO efforts in Afghanistan

coordinated out of Peshawar, Pakistan? One would think it would be a lot easier to get the area in question from Uzbekistan if there isn't an office in Kabul yet.

[Snow]

19. Yes. I guess that's why the WHO officer is an afghan.

but he also covers parts of Pakistan, and that odd area in southern afghanistan, & I think parts of Iran as well. His wife, by the way, is an american, from Iowa - originally a mennonite who converted to Islam. She's a physician, an obstetrician, and her thing is providing health care to women who don't want to see (or more to the point, be seen by) a male physician. Good people, both of them.

[I AM SPARTACUS]

35. Most orgs working in Afghanistan put hq's in Peshawar. Long time.

Uzbekistan's border was closed to traffic until recently. I think that even now, restrictions through Termez make Peshawar a better site as a jump-off point to cover Afghanistan in general.

In fielding an explo team, the team might enter from any number of directions. But the hq's have long been in Peshawar.

[Dover]

21. I remember reading a story back when we first went into Afghanistan

that some cases of ebola had broken out in some refugee groups along the border (who were in the process of fleeing Afghan.). There was also a lot of concern in the U.S. about what to do with all the refugees accumulating at the borders.

http://lists.isb.sdnpk.org/pipermail/health-list/2001-October/000962.html

http://rarediseases.about.com/library/weekly/aa101801a.htm

[DuctapeFatwa]

22. The ebola story didn't get a lot of press coverage

There are no independent figures on its success in Aghanistan.

In fact, there are no figures available on overall population reduction there.

[Dover]

24. I just did a search on it and posted a link in my post above.

I got curious, and hadn't read anything about it for awhile.

[Snow]

26. Where did it talk about Ebola?

the crimean-congo thing is a hemorrhagic fever, but tick-spread. Looks very nasty, by the way. Sounds a lot like dengue fever. I have a friend in Nicaragua who is having great difficulty with repeat dengue outbreaks.

[Dover]

30. I wasn't making any reference to the original posted article.

I was just remembering that this other ebola-like disease had broken out a few years ago. No connection to the recent flu-like disease.

"CCHF has similar effects to the ebola virus. Both viruses damage arteries, veins and other blood vessels and lead to the eventual collapse of major organs."

[Snow]

33. Ahhh, I see.

You probably shouldn't call it Ebola, then - it's a hemorrhagic fever, granted, but there's a lot of those - hanta virus and dengue are others - and the way they're spread means that the way you control each disease is vastly different. The potential for disaster differs a lot as well. Dengue is a real problem that's going to get a lot worse since it's mosquito-vectored, but ebola is very hard to spread, so it's much easier to control.

[Occulus]

28. Was this, perhaps, a flu?

huh..... doesn't say. Guess they don't know yet. I'm sure we'll hear about it eventually if it is.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

32. These people need this shit on top of it all.

Like Cheney needs another heart attack.

[renegade000]

34. horrabile auditu

:-(