KABUL, Jan 5 (Reuters) – In a bitterly cold bedroom at the beginning of winter in Kabul, 22-year-old Mariam sat with her young son. Ward with suspected pulmonary infection.
His 10-month-old Rahmat’s parents say he will get sick again every time they bring him home from the crowded but warm hospital. His parents say they are doing everything they can to keep their income down and the room warm, which drops below freezing at night.
Aid groups say the crisis is likely to deepen. Her NGO staff ban on women has forced more than 180 international organizations to shut down for the critical winter months, saying conservative countries cannot reach out to women and children without female staff. I’m here. Even before that, the economic shock caused by the 2021 Taliban takeover shrank Afghanistan’s GDP by 20% last year, leaving more than half of the population dependent on humanitarian assistance.
Afghanistan has been hit by cutbacks in development spending by foreign governments, the implementation of sanctions by Western countries, and the freezing of assets in the country’s central bank, all of which severely hamper the banking system.
“There are more patients than before, mainly because of the economy,” said Mohammad Arif Hassanzai, head of internal medicine at Indira Gandhi Children’s Hospital in Kabul.
In November, he said more than 6,700 children were hospitalized with pneumonia, cough, asthma and other respiratory ailments, compared with about 3,700 in the same month last year, according to hospital statistics.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which supports several hospitals in Afghanistan, said the number of children under the age of five hospitalized with pneumonia in 2022 had increased by 50% year-on-year, according to winter numbers. Announced a month ago. “People, including children, have died from pneumonia this year,” said Lucien Kristen, spokesman for the ICRC in Kabul, adding that malnutrition contributes to weakening children’s immune systems.
Aid workers say pollution has gotten worse this year as more people burn garbage and plastic for heating.
In a hospital ward dedicated to pneumonia patients, a baby lies in bed with her two or her three, watched overwhelmed by concerned parents and several medical staff. Some mothers held small oxygen masks over their infants’ faces while their fathers crowded the corridors outside.
There was a sudden scream. Mohammad, a month-old baby, stopped breathing and had blue lips. His uncle, who had a child in a green blanket, panicked and was referred to a specialized emergency room two floors down. He ran down the stairs as the baby’s mother tearfully followed.
In the intensive care unit, Mohammad was hooked up to an oxygen tube through his nose. Doctors said he was in critical condition and that he would take five days to stabilize. His mother was at the baby’s bedside. Her husband lost her job and couldn’t pay her heating bill, she said. Seeing her son stop breathing, she said, “She felt her heart stop.”
