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Almost one-quarter of the hospitals treating Covid-19 in Afghanistan have closed in current weeks, and the nation’s efforts to answer the pandemic have declined, World Well being Group officers mentioned Wednesday.
The W.H.O. issued an pressing warning on Wednesday, saying that Afghanistan is getting ready to “an imminent humanitarian disaster.”
The discover adopted a current go to to Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, the place W.H.O. leaders met with the management of the Taliban, which is now answerable for the nation. The W.H.O. officers additionally met with United Nations companions, well being care staff and sufferers.
“Cuts in donor help to the nation’s largest well being venture, Sehetmandi, has left hundreds of well being services with out funding for medical provides and salaries for well being workers,” Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the W.H.O., and Dr. Ahmed Al-Mandhari, the group’s regional director for the Jap Mediterranean, mentioned in a joint assertion on Wednesday.
Roughly two-thirds of the nation’s well being services are a part of Sehatmandi, a three-year, $600 million venture administered by the World Financial institution and financed by the U.S. Company for Worldwide Growth, the European Union, the World Financial institution and different donors.
As a result of funds for the venture had been funneled by way of the Ministry of Public Well being, donors withdrew their help after the Taliban seized energy. Now, solely one-sixth of all Sehatmandi services are absolutely practical, in keeping with the W.H.O.
“Many of those services have now lowered operations or shut down, forcing well being suppliers to make arduous choices on who to avoid wasting and who to let die,” the assertion mentioned.
Officers additionally mentioned that 9 of the 37 hospitals treating Covid-19 in Afghanistan have closed, and coronavirus surveillance, testing and vaccination efforts have contracted.
Afghanistan, which emerged from a surge in virus infections on the finish of June, is beginning to see circumstances rise once more, this time involving the extremely contagious Delta variant.
Earlier than final month, the W.H.O. mentioned, about 2.2 million individuals, or about 6 % of Afghanistan’s inhabitants, had been vaccinated in opposition to Covid-19. However in current weeks, the group mentioned, vaccination charges have slowed markedly, and a few 1.8 million vaccine doses within the nation stay unused.
The nation’s performing well being minister and final remaining holdover from the pre-Taliban Cupboard, Dr. Wahid Majrooh, stepped down on Tuesday.
Martin Griffiths, the U.N.’s beneath secretary for emergency reduction, mentioned on Wednesday that he was releasing $45 million to assist stop Afghanistan’s well being care system from collapsing.
“Medicines, medical provides and gasoline are operating out in Afghanistan,” Mr. Griffiths mentioned in a press release. “Chilly chains are compromised. Important well being care staff usually are not being paid.”
On high of the specter of a public well being disaster, new figures launched by the World Meals Program recommend that 95 % of Afghans lack safe entry to satisfactory meals, a state of affairs that might worsen within the winter, when many distant communities are more likely to be lower off from outdoors help for a number of months.
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