KABUL (SW) – The coronavirus pandemic has overshadowed bids to control aids, health officials said on Tuesday.
Waheedullah Majroh, deputy minister at the Ministry of Public Health, told a moot in connection with the ‘World Aids Day’ that the disease was spreading in the country. He dubbed the spread of aids as a ‘silent pandemic’. He said lack of awareness, increase in the number of drug addicts and second wave of coronavirus pandemic have all added to worsening the situation.
Speaking on the occasion, Ehsanullah Ehsan, head of the National Aids Control Program, said the Covid-19 pandemic has particularly hampered service delivery to aids patients in the country.
As per the World Health Organization figures, the number of aids patients in Afghanistan has swollen from 1 in 1989 to 7,794 in November 2020. Out of all these, the MoPH only has some 1033 aids patients registered. Among them 75 per cent are male, 25 per cent are female and some 176 are children.
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