Islamabad : The recent rise in violence in Afghanistan combined with targeted attacks against health-care facilities threaten to reduce or prevent access to health services for millions of Afghans that more than ever need health services with the outbreak of COVID-19, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said in a statement issued from Islamabad.
“The recent trajectory in Afghanistan is of great concern. After the hope brought by a relative reduction in hostilities in February and March, we again see more violence. Civilian casualties are on the rise while the country is battling against COVID-19,” said Juan Pedro Schaerer, the head of the ICRC delegation in Afghanistan.
“COVID-19 has challenged the world’s most advanced nations. A country where gunmen attack a hospital stands no chance at providing quality care. We see it in health facilities in conflict-affected areas and in prisons, where people have already limited access to health care,” Schaerer said.
In Afghanistan’s largest hospital, Mirwais Regional Hospital in Kandahar, which the ICRC has supported for over 20 years, the staff continue to provide obstetric care and surgery for people wounded in the war. Due to an increase in COVID cases, the hospital now operates at a reduced capacity despite the near-usual rates of patients wounded in fighting and child deliveries.
Mirwais Regional Hospital is the only regional hospital servicing approximately 6 million people in southern Afghanistan. Many of the patients, especially in the surgical ward, come from areas where fighting between the Taliban and government forces continues.
“There are some challenges like the supply pipeline that the ICRC can help with,” said Erin O’Connor, ICRC’s Mirwais hospital project manager. “But getting donors to come to give blood amid COVID is more challenging.”
The fight against COVID-19 needs commitments from all parties to the conflict. ICRC calls to protect medical missions and strengthen healthcare systems in the places, like detention facilities, where such links are the weakest.
“We battle a worldwide enemy and need a country-wide agreement on how to address COVID-19,” Scharer said. “As a start, full respect of international humanitarian law by all parties, without exception, is needed to protect civilians in Afghanistan.”
To help reduce the spread of COVID-19 outbreak in Afghanistan, the ICRC together with the Red Cross and Red Crescent movement partners support the Kabul District Hospital of the Afghanistan Red Crescent Society (ARCS). It provided 12 field hospitals and first responders with Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) including mask, gloves, hand sanitizer, and advised on surgical recommendations for the staff to operate safely in a COVID-19 environment.
In detention places, it donated Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), contact-free thermometers, medical items, and hygiene items such as chlorine, soap, and detergents, and installed handwashing basins besides rebuilding and rehabilitated isolation rooms, and works to improve ventilation.
It also distributed hygiene items in our seven Physical Rehabilitation Centres in Afghanistan to reinforce preventive measures against COVID where thousands of people with disabilities are assisted.