I seem to remember the first case of Anthrax here in this country the health officials and media tried to pass it off as the editors' trip into the woods.
This is probably Chicken Pox, but I have to say the health authorities would probably try to down play any real Smallpox outbreak.
True, and I don't want to get off a tangent here, but anthrax is present in the US and we have had very rare cases where people contracted the disease. The authorities were trying to make the point that one case did not prove a terrorist attack.
Turns out they were wrong.
I suspect here that the Pakistanis don't call this disease by the same word we do. Otherwise this story would be talking about whole villages wiped out, or at least 50% mortality rate among all ages.