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American Morning
Unknown Illness Hits Afghans
Aired March 08, 2002 - 08:08 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: We are going to move on now to some disturbing news out of Afghanistan, and it has absolutely nothing to do with the battle in the eastern mountains. This is about a life- and-death battle in central Afghanistan, and it is being fought by health officials.
There has been an outbreak of an unknown illness about 210 miles west of Kabul, and preliminary signs pointed to scurvy, but Congo- Crimean hemorrhagic fever also is being considered, whatever that is, and that's why our medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, joins us now in the studio for a change to help us better understand it -- good morning.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Paula.
ZAHN: Nice to see you in person for a change.
GUPTA: Thank you, Paula. Yes, great to be here.
ZAHN: So what is it the health officials are so worried about?
GUPTA: Well, it's sort of a concerning thing, and people don't know exactly what it is yet. But basically, 28 people have been affected by what started pretty innocently, headaches, fevers, but then progressed pretty rapidly to bleeding throughout the body. And some people have associated that with hemorrhagic fever. The most common type, the one that scares people the most, Ebola, but it could also be something a lot more innocuous, Paula, scurvy, which actually is a symptom of malnutrition. It also had some of the very same symptoms interestingly, bleeding from the gums, and could potentially led to death as well.
The symptoms of hemorrhagic fever, in general, would be fever, headache, weakness and then a pretty progressive -- rapid progression to bleeding throughout the body, including in the organs and then possibly death. Scurvy, again, could present the same way, but the good news here is scurvy can be very easily treated with Vitamin C.
(CROSSTALK)
ZAHN: And are they actually doing Vitamin C drops now into the region...
GUPTA: Yes.
ZAHN: ... to try to determine actually whether it's that or the fever?
GUPTA: Right. And that was exactly their thinking. They said, well, let's go ahead and treat as if it is scurvy, and a simple treatment for that is to airdrop Vitamin C and airdrop food on this pretty remote village here, which is 210 miles west of Kabul, interestingly. Just airdrop it, let these villagers take it, and that might prevent some of the deaths.
ZAHN: If it's not that, and if it's hemorrhagic fever, what are the consequences of that for American troops?
GUTPA: Well, that gets into the sort of a little bit more scary sort of thing. These hemorrhagic fevers are initially spread by ticks, rodents, but then once they get into the human population, they can be spread just like a cold, sneezing, shaking hands even. Any kind of bodily contact could potentially spread this. So the key is really if somebody has any of these symptoms and you notice that any of the troops have -- anybody has any of these symptoms as you see here, that not to come into contact with any of those folks. Try and isolate those folks, until it can be identified and possibly treated.
ZAHN: There is no indication right now that any American troops have potentially been exposed to this, right?
GUPTA: That's right, and we actually tried to map out exactly where the troops are with respect to this small village, Tajwara village, in Afghanistan. They are some distance away. Again, there are the sort of precautions that need to be taken, but these type of hemorrhagic fevers tend to stay pretty isolated to the villages. They don't tend to spread out. We hear about Ebola. It broke out in the river in the former Congo; hence the same. But it really didn't spread out much beyond the village after that.
ZAHN: Well, thank you for dropping by to help us better understand this.
GUPTA: Thanks for having me.
ZAHN: We should explain it's very hard for us to get any of your time, because you are a surgeon. You are in surgery, what, every Monday.
GUPTA: Right, right.
ZAHN: Explain to people what you do very quickly, and then we're going to take a short break.
GUPTA: Yes, I am a neurosurgeon. I am operating at a university down in Atlanta, at Emory University, and seeing patients in the office and working for CNN.
(CROSSTALK)
ZAHN: Well, we are delighted and whenever we can get any of your time.
GUPTA: Thank you, Paula -- great to be here.
ZAHN: Thanks, Sanjay. Good luck next week.
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