Country facing health disaster worse than the tsunami - minister

As Afghanistan marked World Health Day on Thursday, the country’s health minister, Dr Sayed Mohammad Amin Fatimi, said it was facing a disaster worse than the tsunami that hit Indian Ocean nations late in 2004 and killed more than 300,000 people. “We are currently being faced with a silent emergency which is heartbreaking and a big tragedy, it is worse than the tsunami disaster,” Fatimi told IRIN in the capital Kabul. The minister estimates that around 700 children under the age of five die every day in Afghanistan due to preventable diseases and one women dies every 20 minutes due to complications in pregnancy and childbirth. Lack of resources and trained medical personnel, along with low levels of awareness and cultural factors, were the main reasons for the alarming figures in a country still recovering from nearly three decades of conflict and international isolation. “Traditionally in rural areas people won’t let women to be checked by male doctors,” he said, adding that of just 3,000 doctors in the entire country, only one in six was female. “We need nearly 10,000 midwives and at the same time up to 10,000 female health workers,” the minister said. “To stand by and allow a preventable disaster from occurring is unconscionable…. The long-term consequences for Afghanistan will overturn much of the progress made in recent years,” Ameerah Haq, the deputy Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General said. According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Afghanistan has the fourth highest under five-mortality rate in the world. Diarrhoeal diseases are recognised as the main killer of children, caused by limited access to safe water, sanitation and poor hygiene practices. “It is a very serious situation not only in terms of health but also because of its impact on socio-economic and development issues,” Edward Carwardine, a spokesman for UNICEF, told IRIN. But despite the current problems, UNICEF believes considerable progress has been made. Reported cases of measles among children have fallen from more than 8,700 in 2001 to less than 500 in 2004. “Nearly every province in the country now has a functioning emergency obstetric care facility and new programmes to train midwives and other female health workers are under way across the country,” Carwardine said. The health ministry estimates that the country needs US $255 million to address health issues in 2005. “We are lacking $110 million and if that is not immediately covered, the country will face a more severe health crisis,” the minister noted.