Provision of Essential Health Care Services for Populations in Undeserved Areas of Afghanistan Afghanistan is experiencing an extensive and complex humanitarian crisis characterized by political and economic instability, a severely weakened health system, food insecurity and malnutrition, ongoing outbreaks, a pandemic that continues to spread, severe drought, natural disasters and international war diverting resource. Out of 24.4 million people in need of humanitarian assistance in Afghanistan, 18.1m people will require health assistance in 2022, increasing by 25% from the previous year. More than 74% of the population in need of humanitarian assistance live in rural areas, a total of 13.4 million people. As per WHO mapping of underserved areas, 10.6 million people do not have access to healthcare at all.

Based on WHO’s presence on the ground, evaluation of the current situation and conducted needs assessments, WHO will propose the following areas of intervention under this project to cover the most urgent health needs of the Afghan population: support the delivery of essential, specialized secondary and tertiary care services provided by referral hospitals support to infectious disease outbreak preparedness and access to response measures in outbreak affected areas support to ambulance and pre-hospital care services in provinces with high trauma burden and no existing prehospital system and support to blood bank services provided by national and regional blood banks that are currently minimally operational.

WHO will provide full support to the National Mental Health Hospital as the main and only specialised mental health hospital in the country for a period of 7 months, located in Kabul (Kabul city) province. WHO will also provide full support to Sakina Yaqubi Maternal and Child Health Hospital (district hospital) located in Herat province (Herat City). 

WHO will support infectious diseases outbreaks detection, verification, and response activities through the provision of case management and lab diagnosis kits for communicable diseases to high risk areas, and the establishment of 15 Rapid Response Teams (RRTs) (each containing 6 members) in high risk areas (Helmand, Herat, Kabul, Paktya, and Takhar provinces) for 12 months. Furthermore, as a part of response to communicable diseases outbreaks, case management of the severe cases of infectious diseases will be supported through provision of a full support to the infectious disease wards of the main 2 regional hospitals located in  Herat (Herat city), and Paktya (Gardiz Districts) provinces for 6 months.

WHO is currently supporting ambulance services in 4 provinces (the only ambulance network in the country) through the support of a local NGO. Under this project, WHO will expand the services into the additional priority province of Kandahar (based on the high trauma burden) for 7 months. This will include the establishment of a call center, training of staff, and establishment of a properly equipped fleet of ambulances to transport patients within the updated referral network. Additionally, for provision of pre-hospital trauma care services WHO will support the national blood bank located in Kabul operation through provision of medical supplies and equipment for 12 months.