AOPNEWS | January 25, 2016

Poverty, lack of adequate facilities and medical care in Afghanistan’s remote areas, and the cold weather is making it easy for diseases like pneumonia to kill people, especially children in Afghanistan. Health officials in Faryab province told Afghanistan’s Pajhwok Afghan News (PAN) today that 2000 children have so far been hospitalized this month as result of pneumonia, and from that number, 28 of them have died. Pneumonia is when the lungs become inflamed as a result of bacterial or viral infection. Pneumonia causes severe breathing difficulties, lung damage, internal bleeding, and even death in places like Afghanistan. Children under the age of 5 are the most vulnerable.

A doctor at the Afghan-Turk Hospital in Faryab’s provincial capital, Maimana told PAN that the province lacks proper health facilities. The lack of proper health facilities leads to overcrowding. Overcrowding can make communicable diseases like pneumonia easier to spread; and with the lack of modern medications, the disease can easily become uncontrollable and the death toll will unfortunately, continue to rise.  The doctor also told PAN that according to recommendations from the World Health Organization (WHO), 6 patients should be kept in a single ward, but in Faryab anywhere from 20-25 people are admitted to a single ward. Health officials in the province say that the answer lies with the construction of more hospitals. Faryab’s provincial governor, Syed Anwar Sadat says that he has brought the issue to the attention of the president. The governor said that a hospital whose construction is currently being delayed for unknown reasons will allegedly be completed this year.