“A cholera outbreak at a village in northeast Afghanistan has infected 1,492 people, killed a young woman and left another 100 in critical condition, a provincial official said Tuesday,” the Associated Press/Boston.com reports. “Abdul Marouf Rasekh, a spokesman for the governor of Badakhshan province, said the outbreak began three days ago and was restricted to one town that has been quarantined,” the news agency writes, adding, “Rasekh said the source of the infection had been traced to a single spring of water that supplies the entire town’s drinking water.” According to the AP, “Afghanistan has had cholera outbreaks in the past but they are not common.” The news agency continues, “Access to clean drinking water is a problem in rural Afghanistan and health care is rudimentary in large parts of the country, which has one of the world’s lowest life expectancies at 50. Only 12 percent of Afghans living in rural areas have access to clean drinking water, according to [USAID]” (8/13).