Health officials in eastern Nangarhar province say that 297 people have been registered in the province as having AIDS, including 103 women.
Nangarhar’s head of infectious disease control Dr Abdul Rashid Wafa said in a public health conference that one person has since died with the disease.
AIDS is the most advanced stage of HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus), an infection that attacks the body’s immune system.
The provincial head of public health Aminullah Sharif praised the efforts of healthcare workers and cooperating institutions in the field to control and prevent HIV in his address to the conference in Nangarhar.
He urged health professionals to share information on the virus for more public awareness and called for better treatments for patients with the disease.
Dr Toryalai Shinwari from the not-for-profit development organization JACK addressed the meeting with calls for better cooperation in this field and for all hospitals to have HIV diagnosis and screening facilities.
Residents in Nangarhar province have criticized the local health system under the Taliban saying that there has been no public health campaigns in this regard despite the spread of HIV.
They want the Taliban to speed up the service delivery and work towards the general awareness of the citizens to prevent the spread of the disease at the city and district levels.
The World Bank has estimated around 530 people died with AIDS in Afghanistan in 2021, according to its most recent report.
It says the number of deaths is plausibly as high as 2000, however without accurate records, it is not possible to say with certainty.
Both the World Bank estimated and plausible deaths are increasing year on year, up from 500 deaths and 1200 plausible deaths in 2016.
The World Bank also estimated around 30 percent of people with HIV in Afghanistan in 2021 are women.
