By Kobra Nader and M. Mursal
Cases of measles are rising rapidly in hospitals across the central and western provinces of Afghanistan, doctors and health officials have warned, the latest hardship to befall the cash-strapped country three months after the Taliban took control.
Health officials in three provinces, Farah, Ghor and Badghis, where the most measles cases are reported, say no measles vaccine campaign was conducted last year. This is mostly due to war and increased insecurity as the Taliban were advancing on the district and provincial capitals. Even in 2018, the last time when cases of the disease surged in Afghanistan, Ghor and Badghis were among “the worst affected provinces.”
In western Farah, measles patients started coming to the public hospital in early May. “One hundred and sixty people infected with measles were hospitalized in Farah just in the past 20 days,” said Sarajudin Mojmal, head of the Farah provincial directorate of public health.
Health officials in the northwestern province of Badghis say the rapid spread of measles cases among children is concerning. In 2020, Badghis province had registered 8 suspect cases of measles, but in 2021, that number has risen to 315, of which 34 are confirmed measles cases, said Asef Qanait, head of the Badghis provincial directorate of public health.
Herat hospitals are also seeing a surge in measles cases. On average, 15-20 cases of measles were registered in hospitals each month over the past year, according to head of Herat provincial directorate of public health, Aref Jalali.
In October the UN World Food Program (WFP) warned that half of Afghanistan’s population is facing starvation if no immediate action was taken.
“Ninety-five percent of the people don’t have enough food, and now we’re looking at 23 million people marching towards starvation,” said David Beasley, director of the UN World Food Program in an interview with the BBC, describing the situation in Afghanistan as “the worst humanitarian crisis on Earth.”
The central, extremely remote province of Ghor is likely to be one of the main capitals of this crisis, where patients are being sent home due to a shortage of beds, medicine and doctors. The province, with a population of nearly one million, has only one public hospital, where doctors and staff have not received their salaries for the past four months, according to health officials in the province.
“It has been five months since the measles outbreak started in Ghor, but due to lack of medicine and beds, the number of infected patients and death are rising,” said Fazlul Haq Farjad, the chief physician at the Ghor provincial hospital, where 200 patients are being treated in 120 beds, some lying on the ground.
“On a normal day, around 8-15 children infected with measles are brought to the hospital,” said Farjad, adding that he does not have the exact number of children who died from the disease.
On September 20, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed 16 cases of measles and 4 cases of mumps among people who were evacuated from Afghanistan, causing the CDC to issue an alert to clinicians across the US to be on the lookout for cases of measles, mumps, leishmaniasis, and malaria.
