Kabul:
The World Health Organization warned on Tuesday, due to the termination of US aid, more than 10 percent of the Afghan population may be deprived of healthcare.
Afghanistan, with a population of 45 million which has long been dependent on aid, is facing the second largest humanitarian crisis in the world.
Since the cut in US funding earlier this year, about three million people have lost access to health services due to the shutdown of more than 364 medical centers, with 220 centers at risk of closing by the third quarter of 2025, the United Nations Health Agency said.
“Perhaps there are one and three or three million people who have no access to health services,” Edwin Seneiza Salvador, a representative of WHO, Afghanistan, told AFP in an interview in Kabul.
“When the funding stopped, the existing donors definitely tried to move. But you are talking about a significant difference for American funding,” said Salvador.
Afghanistan’s Ramshakal Healthcare System has weakened over the decades of the war and records some highest infant and maternal mortality in the world.
President Donald Trump has become serious in the beginning of this year to terminate the US agency for international development and to start a return to Washington from WHO.
His administration abolished 83 percent humanitarian programs funded by USAID. The agency’s annual budget was $ 42.8 billion, which represented 42 percent of the total global humanitarian aid.
“The system is already very delicate, and whatever system is left is really the best combat that they can,” said Salvador.
“This is only getting worse, and if we are unable to address the difference collectively, I am afraid that it will only be worse to move forward.”
Salvador said that the risk of diseases like dengue, malaria and tuberculosis will increase, while vaccination would decline.
WHO is also trying to vaccinate enough children to eradicate polio, which is now locally in only two countries: Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan.
This month, the United Nations Assistance Mission at Afghanistan (UNAMA) urged international donors to continue the support of 22.9 million Afghans in the need for assistance this year.
According to the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), 85 percent of Afghans live less than one dollar a day.
(Except for the headline, the story has not been edited by NDTV employees and is published by a syndicated feed.)