KABUL -- An outbreak of cholera in eastern Afghanistan has killed 11 people, mostly children, AFP quoted state-run Radio Shariat as saying on Sunday.

It said the epidemic hit villages in Paktika Province controlled by the ruling Taleban militia.

Radio Shariat said an emergency treatment center had been set up in Janikhel District where 60 people were hospitalized over the past week.

It said the World Health Organization extended cooperation to the Taleban Health Ministry in dealing with cholera cases and in bringing the situation under control.

Last year in the summer cholera claimed dozens of lives in the war- and drought-hit Afghanistan. Sanitation is poor in several Afghan districts where animals and people often use water from the same streams and springs.