KABUL - On 2 January 2003, an emergency team travelled with an Afghan Ministry of Defence helicopter from Faizabad, the provincial capital of Badakhshan, to Darwaz district, to stop here an outbreak of pertussis (whooping cough) threatening the lives of an estimated 40,000 infants and young children. Badakhshan province is a mountainous area, where many of its villages can only be reached from Tajikistan. In a joint effort to address the outbreak, the Afghan Ministry of Health mission has received support from the highest political authorities in Afghanistan and Tajikistan; as well as from several United Nations agencies and Focus/AKDN, working together in the two countries.

Early November, pertussis had been confirmed by WHO clinical criteria in Kufob sub-district of Khwahan district. Here a joint Ministry of Health, WHO, and Focus-team had found 115 cases in 4 villages. Since then, the antibiotic drug erythromycin had been provided to treat and protect about 2,000 children and mothers. Latest reports from Badakhshan province in North Eastern Afghanistan, indicate that whooping cough has affected Darwaz district, north from Khwahan district.

In populations which are not vaccinated, especially those with underlying malnutrition and other infections, a whooping cough outbreak can lead to high mortality among infants and young children. A two-week course of the life-saving drug erythromycin protects non-immunized individuals from the highly contagious disease.

In North Eastern Afghanistan, volunteers with experience of giving vaccinations during mass immunization campaigns. These volunteers have have garnered considerable expertise on setting up distribution systems for their local communities during the last three years of immunization campaigns for polio eradication.

Training is currently provided by the team which arrived on 2 January, and which is composed of two health workers from the Afghan Ministry of Health, two doctors of WHO, and a member of Focus/AKDN. The team members will also assess the extent of the epidemic, and take samples for laboratory confirmation. In an emergency mobile clinic which was opened by the team on 3 January 2002 in Nusai village, 151 patients had received treatment for whooping cough.

In the next couple of days, a UN and Afghan military helicopter will rush extra supplies of erythromycine, along with vaccines and vaccination equipment procured by UNICEF to the affected area. Access to Darwaz for supplies of this nature is only possible by air. The equipment and vaccines will allow Darwaz district health workers to accelerate providing immunization services to the population. Immunization provides the best and most cost-effective form of defence against the spread of pertussis and of other vaccine-preventable diseases.

At both sides of the border emergency assistance for Darwaz district will be facilitated. To reach affected Afghan villages as quickly as possible, team members will use the only accessible road on the Tajik side of the border, and cross the Omu river with small boats. President Karzai of Afghanistan and First Deputy Minister Kasimov of Tajikistan have expressed their full support for the cross-border operation. International humanitarian agencies and authorities in Kabul and Faizabad, Afghanistan, as well as in Dushanbe and Ishkashim, Tajikistan, are supporting the operations on the field. WFP, WHO, UNICEF, the UN Joint Logistics Centre for Afghanistan (UNJLC), UN Assistance Mission for Afghanistan (UNAMA), UNOCHA–Tajikistan, and Focus assist the operation with transport by air and by road for supplies and team members.