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“The country’s already fragile health system is overwhelmed,” says Luo Dapeng, WHO’s representative to Afghanistan, urging donors to resume funding suspended when Taliban took over governing the country.
The World Health Organisation’s
representative to Afghanistan has called on the international
community to resume funding of the war-torn
country’s health programme which was suspended when the Taliban
took over governing the country, as the healthcare system had
plunged into crisis.
“In the recent weeks, access to health care has significantly declined for hundreds of thousands of some of the most vulnerable Afghans,” Luo Dapeng, WHO’s representative to Afghanistan, said at a press conference in Geneva on Thursday.
“The country’s already fragile health system is overwhelmed,” he said, adding they were coordinating with donors to find alternative funding mechanisms for health facilities.
Dilemma faced by international donors
The deteriorating situation underscored the dilemma faced
by many international donors, many of which are reticent to fund
the Taliban-led administration, some of whose members are on
international sanctions lists, but fear that the country is
veering towards a humanitarian crisis.
International governments have pledged millions in urgent
humanitarian aid but questions remain over longer-term
development and other funding to an economy highly dependent on
international assistance.
Billions of dollars in central bank
assets held outside the country have also been frozen.
A roughly $600 million three-year health project
administered by the World Bank in Afghanistan has funded the
operation of hundreds of health facilities, and WHO estimated
less than a fifth were now fully functional.
That has
contributed to a surge in cases of measles and diarrhea, with
half of the Afghan children at risk of malnutrition and millions of
Covid-19 vaccines sitting unused, Dapeng said.
Source: Reuters
WHO: Global donors must resume Afghanistan health funding
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