The World Health Organization will stay in Afghanistan and deliver critical health services to civilians, said its top officials, even as its interventions in the country have been put on hold for the last 36 hours due to ongoing uncertainty on the ground.

“We cannot backslide on two decades of progress,” said WHO chief Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus during a media briefing.

“Our staff remain in the country and committed to delivering health services to the most vulnerable. Yesterday, WHO dispatched trauma kits and other medical supplies to help health workers responding to the increases in injuries they’re seeing,” he added.

Attacks galore

This is even as attacks on healthcare remain a major challenge. “From January to July 2021, 26 health facilities and 31 healthcare workers were affected; 12 health workers were killed,” said the agency.

With tomorrow being World Humanitarian Day, Dr Tedros said: “I can honestly say that I have never seen so many emergencies happening simultaneously.”

‘Extreme fragility’

Pointing out that this moment in history is one of extreme fragility, he said: “The humanitarian system is being pushed to its absolute limit and beyond by the climate crisis, natural disasters, conflict and the pandemic.”

Earlier, Dr Ahmed Al-Mandhari, WHO Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean, said on Afghanistan: “Months of violence have taken a heavy toll on Afghanistan’s fragile health system, which had already been facing shortages in essential supplies amid the Covid-19 pandemic.” WHO and partners have conducted an initial assessment of the health needs of displaced populations and have deployed two mobile health teams to provide medical services, he said, adding: “However, interventions have been on hold for the past 36 hours due to insecurity.”

The recent conflict has resulted in an increase in trauma injuries, requiring scaled up emergency medical and surgical services. In July, 13,897 conflict-related trauma cases were received at 70 WHO-supported health facilities, compared to 4,057 cases in July 2020, he said.

Despite the insecurity, on August 17, WHO dispatched 33 units of different modules of trauma kits to Wazir Akbar Khan Hospital in Kabul, enough to cover 500 surgical procedures for 500 trauma patients and 750 burn victims, and 10 basic medical kits enough to provide essential medicines for 10,000 people for three months, he added.

“This week, WHO also provided Helmand regional hospital with 6 basic medical supply kits and one cholera kit to support the provision of basic medicines for 6,000 people for three months and the management of 100 cases of diarrhoea.

Donations

In the past week, WHO has also donated medical supplies to three health partners to sustain critical work at their health facilities by covering gaps in availability,” he said, outlining support to the war-torn country.

comment COMMENT NOW