Overview
With support from partners and donors, the World Health Organization (WHO) continues to sustain the functionality of 104 health facilities across the 34 provinces of Afghanistan. This includes 96 hospitals under the Sehatmandi Project, five COVID-19 hospitals located in Kabul, Uruzgan, Ghazni, Paktik and Nangarhar provinces, two national hospitals in Kabul, and one emergency hospital in Panjshir province. WHO has teams on-the-ground that are working with local health workers and partners to ensure delivery of health services.
To improve quality of health services and strengthen pharmaceutical and stock management at the hospital and regional levels, a delegation from WHO country office visited Mirwais Regional Hospital, Spin-Boldak District Hospital and WHO medical stock in Kandahar sub office.
From 12 to 17 March 2021, Afghanistan launched a measles immunization campaign for 49 districts in 24 provinces aimed to cover 1.2 million children ages 6-59 months. The campaign is part of the national response measure to stop the spread of the outbreak, save lives of the young children and reduce the burden on health systems. WHO supports in the management of the vaccination, including technical advice, training of staff, funding for trainings, costs for operation as well as with provision of supplies and logistics. Oral polio drops are also given to children in combination with the measles vaccine.
WHO continues the partnership with 14 NGOs to support the implementation of the next phase of the Sehatmandi project at the hospital level (secondary healthcare services) in 34 provinces of the country through World Bank-led Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund (ARTF).
WHO has already disbursed the first installment to those 14 NGOs ($12.07 M USD), and 8277 healthcare workers have received the salary for February 2022, including 2178 female staff (26.3%).
During the last two weeks, reduction in the new cases of acute watery diarrhea (AWD) continues while the measles outbreaks cases showed slight reduction when compared to the preceding two weeks, even though new cases are reported every day. WHO maintains 111 rapid response teams (RRT) on-the-ground to support surveillance and response.
During the reporting period, WHO donated 221 emergency medical kits and trauma care equipment to the International Medical Corps (IMC) and International Rescue Committee (IRC) NGOs to run their mobile health teams (MHTs) in Kabul and Bamyan provinces and provide primary health services to vulnerable people living in underserved areas. WHO remains committed to improving the capacity of health care workers in the country. In the last two weeks, WHO trained 238 health care workers on basic emergency care, emergency counseling, case investigation and sample collection during outbreaks, and response to survivors of violence.
Trauma and post-trauma physical rehabilitation services were provided to 13,805 people through the WHOsupported Trauma Care Units (TCUs) and physical rehabilitation centers. Emergency primary healthcare services were extended to 132,624 people living in underserved and remote areas of Afghanistan through MHTs and sub health centers (SHCs). A total of 8,074 emergency medical supplies and kits deployed by WHO to various areas in the last two weeks that will reach more than 5.3 million people in various parts of the country.
During the last two weeks, WHO teams visited Bamyan, Faryab, Samangan, Jawzjan, Sar-e-Pul, Kandahar, provinces to monitor delivery of health services in WHO-supported health facilities. During these visits, the teams met with Governors, provincial public health directors, Basic Package of Health Services (BPHS) and Essential Package of Hospital Services (EPHS) implementing NGOs, and other health cluster partners.
Emergency reproductive, maternal and child health services are not readily accessible to a significant part of the vulnerable population due to limited provider capacity, including a weak referral system, an unprecedented level of malnutrition that is making people more vulnerable to illness and diseases like measles.
The country continues to face multiple outbreaks, including COVID-19, measles, AWD, dengue fever and malaria.
Despite tremendous efforts by WHO and partners, the health system continues to struggle with shortages of supplies, fuel, and money to pay staff.
The major issue is funding to sustain health service delivery. There are still over 1200 health facilities and more than 11 000 health workers who are not covered through current support. Even the facilities WHO is supporting only have funding until the end of June 2022.