Nationwide anti-diarrhoea campaign

More than 50 percent of deaths among Afghan children under the age of five are caused by diarrhoea, the Afghan health ministry announced on Monday, adding that the disease is becoming a serious problem for the country where child mortality is already unacceptably high. "Already this year, the incidence of diarrhoeal diseases in [the capital] Kabul has begun to increase, with more new cases being reported every week," Seyyed Wahidollah Majid, the director of hygiene education and environmental care at the Afghan Ministry of Public Health (MOPH), told IRIN in Kabul on Monday. Majid said that in 2002, over 6,000 cases of diarrhoea had been reported every week in the capital alone, some 50 percent of them affecting children under the age of five. The summer months are traditionally the time when incidence of the disease climaxes. With a view to curbing it, the MOPH, along with UN agencies and NGOs, launched a one-week national campaign on 24 May, designated as the National Diarrhoea Prevention Week. "Diarrhoea Prevention Week is an initiative led by the Afghan Ministry of Health, in partnership with the ministry of Religious Affairs, UNICEF [the UN Children's Fund], World Health Organisation [WHO], Population Services International [PSI] NGO and number of other international aid agencies," Majid explained. He added that over 900 workers, including schoolteachers, clerics and health workers, were participating in the campaign. According to UNICEF, the campaign aims to bring health and hygiene messages to the population, and provide information and advice to households on how to reduce the risk of being infected. "The main thing that causes diarrhoea will be poor hygiene practices and lack of access to sanitation facilities," Therese Dooley, a sanitation and hygiene education officer for UNICEF, told IRIN. She said a campaign undertaken in the southern city of Kandahar last year had been the starting point for this year's national effort in collaboration with more health bodies to prevent the easily curable disease from killing the nation's children. UNICEF said the activities planned nationwide included a series of household health promotion programmes, through which teams of health educators would visit communities to discuss issues such as safe food preparation, the importance of clean drinking water, disposal of refuse and human waste, and personal hygiene. "In Kabul, a number of public campaigns are being undertaken by local drama groups and even a children’s circus," Dooley said, adding that such initiatives were planned for other major cities in the future. In addition to this, a radio programme designed by PSI on preventative measures for diarrhoea is being broadcast across the country, targeting parents through a series of messages and radio dramas. Afghanistan has the fourth-highest rate of infant mortality and deaths of children under five in the world, based on recent surveys. Aid agencies say unless more major efforts are made, such as the nationwide campaign, deaths will continue to increase.