Officials from the ministry of health said Sunday they had recorded 15,000 cases of black jaundice (Heidan disease) in Afghanistan in the past year.
Marking World Anti-Jaundice Day the Ministry of Public Health said records show that in the past 10 years, over 100,000 people have contracted the disease. They say they need international agencies to cooperate with them on dealing with the disease.
World Health Organization (WHO) meanwhile reported that 300 million people worldwide are infected with this virus, and that two million are infected with this virus every year.
They say that they are collaborating with Afghanistan to fight, diagnose and treat, and they have plans to raise the level of public awareness.
Officials in the National AIDS and Hepatitis Control Program say that there are black jaundice diagnosis centers in fourteen provinces of the country, health services are available in eight provinces, and patients are treated in six provinces.
In 2010, the World Health Organization named the 28th of July as the World Anti-Jaundice Day. This organization stated that the purpose of naming this day is to fight black jaundice disease and control it.
This disease kills one million people worldwide every year.
