HEALTH-AFGHANISTAN:
Severe Cold Continues to Claim Children's Lives
Parwin Faiz - Pajhwok/IPS
Five-year-old Salahuddin, from Samangan province has caught pneumonia and is hovering
between life and death in a hospital in Mazar-e-Sharif, in northern Afghanistan. He is one
of the thousands of children who have fallen gravely ill because of the usually cold weather
here and heavy snowfall, which has cut off the north and central western regions from the
rest of the country.
MAZAR-E-SHARIF, Afghanistan, Feb 21 (IPS) - Dr. Mohammad Shafiq Sahab, a pediatrician in the Mazar-e-Sharif hospital said that 25
children who contracted pneumonia had died within a month after being admitted. He said
most of the children were brought to the hospital several days after contracting the
disease.
Salahuddin's mother told 'Pajhahwok Afghan News' that her son had not been able to
open his eyes because of the burning fever.
''The doctors in Samangan province refused to hospitalize him. I don't know whether he
will survive,'' she said as Salahuddin, on a drip, lay in bed drawing shallow breaths.
Sahab revealed that there are 100 severely sick children in his hospital suffering from all
kinds of respiratory ailments because of the severe cold.
''The hospital only has capacity for 60 children. With these extra patients we are forced
to put more than one child in a single bed,'' he said with frustration.
According to Health Minister Amin Fatimie, at least 128 Afghan children have died from
diseases caused by the bitter cold.
But he alarmed reporters in Kabul when he said that many parents were feeding their
ailing children opium to ease their pain.
''Some parents do not go to the doctors and they administer opium to the kids to stop
the cough. That stops the cough but can also kill them,'' he said.
Afghanistan is the world's largest producer of opium, and many parents mired in
desperate poverty have few or no other painkillers available.
According to the U.S.-based Catholic Relief Services (CRS), some 265 people are
confirmed dead, 73 of whom are children who died from an outbreak of measles and
whooping cough in Ghor Province, in central western Afghanistan.
The province, the center of which is located some 300 kilometers east of Herat City,
already faced food shortages from a drought earlier in the year.
Record snowfall has hampered access to communities and according to CRS, an
estimated 80 percent of the province remains impassable - raising fears that deaths
could be much higher than the numbers confirmed.
''Access to communities even a few miles from main roads is extremely limited,'' said
P.M. Hose, CRS country representative in Afghanistan.
''Information is lacking, but what we are finding so far indicates the situation is grave -
sickness is spreading and food and fuel shortages are becoming acute. If we do not
immediately ramp up efforts to clear roads and reach these communities, I'm afraid the
situation will become even more critical over the next few days,'' he said.
According to Solidarités, the non-governmental organisation (NGO) in charge of the
maintenance of the three main roads in the Central Highlands, all mountain passes remain
closed due to the heavy snowfall.
The hardest hit area appears to be the central western province of Ghor, deep in the
Hindu Kush mountains, where deep snow has cut off scores of villages.
''Work is ongoing but among the many difficulties are the extremely cold temperatures
and a very strong wind pushing snow back on the road,'' said Solidarités in a statement.
Due to the inaccessibility of areas cut off by the deep snow and avalanches, the exact
number of children dying from cold weather-related diseases like pneumonia, diphtheria,
measles and whooping cough still remains unknown.
''Actually I do not want to get into the numbers game for the simple reason that we do
not have a clear picture. And this is something the government is also saying both at the
central and local level,'' said Edward Carwardine, head of public information, United
Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) at a press conference organised by the Kabul-based
United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA).
''I do not want to say there are tens or hundreds, we simply do not know. What we do
know of course is that traditionally in the winter children are the most vulnerable in this
country and they tend to be the ones who suffer first,'' Carwardine told reporters.
The World Food Programme said it was facing major difficulties in reaching Saghar and
Tulak districts of Ghor province to provide assistance to some 15,000 people. Two
convoys of 12 trucks with 140 tonnes of food left from Herat on Feb. 3, but could not
reach the districts due to heavy snowfall.
''One convoy offloaded some 100 kilometers from its final destination, in Farsi. The
second convoy is still stuck at 125 kilometers from Herat,'' said a WFP statement late last
week.
Afghanistan has one of the highest rates of infant mortality in the world and almost a
quarter of infants do not live past the age of five. (END/2005)
