The health care system in Afghanistan is on the brink of collapse, international aid groups warned this week, threatening to deepen the country’s humanitarian crisis just as temperatures begin dropping, The Economic Times reports.
Thousands of health care facilities have run out of essential medicines. Afghan doctors have not been paid in two months, with no paychecks in sight. And in recent weeks, there has been a surge of cases of measles and diarrhea, according to the World Health Organization.
For two decades, aid from the World Bank and other international donors propped up the country’s health care system, but after the Taliban seized power, they froze $600 million in health care aid.
More than half a million Afghans were driven from their homes during the Taliban’s four-month military campaign this summer, and many of them are still living in makeshift camps. A drought that has enveloped much of the country has caused a dire food shortage, according to the World Food Program. And the country faces a major economic crisis with the Taliban cut off from both international banking systems and the foreign aid that propped up the previous government.
Around 18 million Afghans, almost half the population, are now in urgent need of humanitarian assistance, according to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
