Outbreak Hits World's Most Remote Island

A severe viral asthma is wreaking havoc on Tristan da Cunha, a volcanic island 1,700 miles off the coast of South Africa described as the world's most remote community, the BBC reports. Many of the island's 275 residents are having trouble breathing; medical supplies are dwindling in the South Atlantic community, which has no airstrip.

The disease is afflicting mainly the elderly and young children, taxing the island's one-doctor, four-bed hospital. "It makes people chesty and it's hard for them to breathe," one resident told BBC Radio Cornwall. A spokeswoman for the British Foreign Office said it was still working on plans to get medical supplies to the island ahead of the next scheduled delivery. (More asthma stories.)