KABUL (SW) – After months of almost no access to medical services, the World Health Organization joined a team that transported by air essential medicines for the most inaccessible communities of Darwaz Districts in Badakhshan Province in Afghanistan on 15 February.
“These medical supplies were distributed to the Nusai and Kofab Comprehensive Health Centers that serve the catchment area population. #WHO also provided health education to community members about the risk of #measles and how they can protect their children”, tweeted the WHO.
A day earlier, the International Rescue Committee called for an urgent policy reset saying leaders in the US and Europe must address the economic crisis to enable ordinary Afghans to meet their basic needs, it said in a statement.
As the freezing winter conditions worsen, millions of families are finding themselves in desperate circumstances. Almost 23 million Afghans – more than half of the country’s population – are facing acute food insecurity. One million children are at risk of the most severe form of malnutrition, said the IRC.
It added unaddressed, the current humanitarian crisis could lead to more deaths than twenty years of war.
Vicki Aken, IRC Afghanistan Director, said, the committee works across dozens of crisis and conflict settings, but we have not seen an entire country deteriorate this fast in recent years.
“Since August, the international community has cut off non-humanitarian funding, which amounted to 40 per cent of GDP and propped up 75 per cent of public spending, including basic services. This economic crisis is contributing to a catastrophic humanitarian emergency that has left a quarter of the population facing the risk of famine – the largest population experiencing such extreme levels of hunger in the world”, he said.
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