<p><a href="/en/afganistan/kabul" class="glossify-link">KABUL</a> services in the country, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) warned on Wednesday.</p>
<p>Millions of Afghans need health services more than ever with the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the global humanitarian organisation said in a statement.</p>
<p>“The recent trajectory in Afghanistan is of great concern. After the hope brought by a relative reduction in hostilities in February and March, we again see more violence,” the Geneva-based institution added.</p>
<p>Civilian casualties were on the rise while the country was battling COVID-19, remarked Juan Pedro Schaerer, the head of the ICRC delegation in Afghanistan.</p>
<p>Afghanistan, like many war-torn countries, has an overstretched health system that is challenged by limited coverage in conflict-affected areas, poor specialised healthcare and now the outbreak of COVID-19.</p>
<p>Attacks against health staff or health facilities, such as the deadly assault in May against the MSF-supported maternity hospital in Kabul, only exacerbated the situation, the ICRC explained.</p>
<p>“COVID-19 has challenged the <a href="/en/world" class="glossify-link">world</a>’s most advanced nations. A country where gunmen attack a hospital stands no chance to provide quality care. We see it in health facilities in conflict-affected areas and in prisons, where people have already limited access to health care,” Schaerer said.</p>
<p>In Afghanistan’s largest hospital, Mirwais Regional Hospital in Kandahar, which the ICRC has supported for over 20 years, the staff continues to provide obstetric care and surgery for people wounded in war.</p>
<p>“Due to an increase in COVID cases, the hospital now operates at a reduced capacity despite the near-usual rates of patients wounded in fighting and child deliveries,” the statement said.</p>
<p>“Worryingly, a substantial number of COVID cases in Afghanistan are health personnel, which puts more strain on the entire system. Mirwais hospital regularly faces a shortage of masks and hand gel as the outbreak disrupts logistics pipelines. As well, blood donations have decreased but the need for blood has not.”</p>
<p>Erin O’Connor, ICRC’s Mirwais Hospital project manager, said: “There are some challenges like the supply pipeline that the ICRC can help with. But getting donors to come to give blood amid COVID is more challenging.”</p>
<p>The fight against COVID-19 needed commitments from all parties to the conflict, the ICRC said, calling for the protection of medical missions and strengthening healthcare systems in the places like detention facilities.</p>
<p>“We battle a worldwide enemy and need a country-wide agreement on how to address COVID-19,” Scharer said. “As a start, full respect of international humanitarian law by all parties, without exception, is needed to protect civilians in Afghanistan.”</p>
<p>To help reduce the spread of COVID-19 outbreak in Afghanistan, the ICRC together with the Red Cross and Red Crescent movement partners:</p>
<p>• Support the Kabul District Hospital of the Afghanistan Red Crescent <a href="/en/society" class="glossify-link">Society</a> (ARCS) with training, infection control, hygiene and patient care protocols, material equipment and the long-term infrastructure upgrade of electricity, water and sanitation, and waste management facilities.</p>
<p>• Provided 12 field hospitals and first responders with Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) including mask, gloves, hand sanitizer and advised on surgical recommendations for the staff to operate safely in a COVID-19 <a href="/en/environment" class="glossify-link">environment</a>.</p>
<p>• In detention places, donated Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), contact-free thermometers, medical items and hygiene items such as chlorine, soap and detergents, and installed hand washing basins besides rebuilding and rehabilitated isolation rooms, and works to improve ventilation.</p>
<p>• Distributed hygiene item in our seven Physical Rehabilitation Centers in Afghanistan to reinforce preventive measures against COVID where thousands of people with disabilities are assisted.</p>
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