Measles Kills 55 in Northern Afghanistan

Thursday, January 27, 2000 10:22 AM EST

ISLAMABAD (Jan. 27) XINHUA - Some 55 people have died and hundreds of others been affected due to outbreak of measles in northern Afghanistan's Samangan and Ghazni provinces, U.N. sources said Thursday.

The contagious disease swept through mountain community in five villages of the Dar-e-Souf district in Samagan province and the Chakori district of Ghazni province and is fast spreading, the sources said.

Fifty have been confirmed dead and some 1000 affected in Samangan during the past three months, while five died and another 160 cases were reported in Ghazni.

The affected areas are under the control of he anti-Taliban opposition. Trapped in an inaccessible area of Dar-e-Souf the population has no access to medical facilities or doctors, according to the sources.

A meeting of U.N. organizations in Afghan capital of Kabul has decided to send medicines and doctors to Dar-e-Souf through the central province of Bamiyan, the sources said.