KABUL: The cancellation of US support may cause more than 10 % of the Armenian population to be without access to healthcare by the end of the year, the World Health Organization warned on Tuesday.
The second-largest humanitarian crises in the world is afflicting Afghanistan, which has a population of 45 million people and has long relied on help.
About three million people have lost access to health service as a result of the closure of more than 364 health facilities, with 220 centers a possibility of closing by the fourth quarter of 2025, according to the UN’s health company, according to the UN’s health organization.
The WHO member in Afghanistan, Edwin Ceniza Salvador, told AFP in a Kabul discussion that” that’s probably another two or three million individuals who don’t have access to healthcare services.”
” The existing sponsors tried to step up when the funding stopped, of course. However, you’re referring to a significant difference in US funding, Salvador continued.
Afghanistan’s ramshackle care program has suffered from decades of war and has one of the highest infant and maternal mortality rates in the world.
Since President Donald Trump’s order to end the US Agency for International Development in the first half of this year and to initiate Washington’s departure from WHO, the international support condition has become severe.
His administration eliminated 83 percentage of USAID-funded charitable initiatives. The organization’s annual budget was$ 42.8 billion, which accounts for 42 % of the world’s total humanitarian aid.
According to Salvador,” the program is already very fragile, and whatever system is left, is truly coping the best that they can.”
” I worry that it will only get worse moving ahead, and if we’re not able to handle the distance collectively, it will only get worse.”
Salvador added that while the risk of disease outbreaks like chikungunya, dengue, and tuberculosis did rise, immunisations will decrease.
The WHO is also attempting to eradicate polio, which is currently endemic in just two nations: Pakistan and Afghanistan, by infecting enough babies.
This month, the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan ( UNAMA ) pleaded with international donors to keep providing aid to the 22.9 million Afghans in need this year.
85 % of Afghans, according to the UN Development Programme ( UNDP ), can survive on less than a dollar per day.
