IEA has appealed to the World Health Organization to equip and strengthen Afghanistan’s health sector and to support Afghanistan’s pharmaceutical production sector.
Dr. Hanan Balkhy, the World Health Organization’s director for the Eastern Mediterranean Regional Office, met in Kabul this week for talks with Amir Khan Muttaqi, the IEA’s foreign minister.
During the meeting, Muttaqi asked the World Health Organization to assist Afghanistan and to help it achieve self-sufficiency in the pharmaceutical production sector.
Balkhy meanwhile said that he was trying to garner support for Afghanistan from leading health experts around the world.
Christopher Elias, head of global development for the Bill Gates Foundation, also attended this meeting and said his organization was trying to take effective measures to eliminate the polio virus in Afghanistan.
Polio cases increase
Elias’ comment comes after the WHO stated that the forced repatriation of Afghan nationals from Pakistan was a “major setback” for polio eradication efforts and that it contributed to the regional resurgence of the disease.
Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two polio-endemic nations in the world and so far this year, the two countries have reported 49 and 23 cases respectively; up from only six cases each in 2023.
The latest case in Pakistan was confirmed last week in the southwestern province of Balochistan, which sits on the Afghan border and accounts for half the cases reported in 2024.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has said that Pakistan’s crackdown on undocumented foreign nationals has resulted in more than 730,000 Afghan migrants returning to Afghanistan since August 2023.
