75 Children With Measles Died in Afghanistan

The Afghan Ministry of Public Health stated that 75 children died due to measles in the country in the first six months of the year.

According to the statistics provided by the ministry, over 5,200 people contracted measles during these six months.

Sharafat Zaman Amarkhil, the spokesman for the Ministry of Public Health, told TOLOnews: “We have precise statistics, and the cases confirmed by the laboratory amount to 5,240 positive cases. Alongside this, we have 75 deaths, and after the positive cases were confirmed, these children lost their lives.”

Maryam, who brought her five-year-old child to the Indira Gandhi Child Health Hospital for treatment, told TOLOnews: “One of my children is in school, and he contracted it from a classmate. When he came home, his eyes were not red; the measles only appeared on his hands.”

Meanwhile, The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) has reported that from the beginning of this year until the end of May, more than 28,000 suspected cases of measles and 126 deaths from this disease have been reported to this organization in Afghanistan.

UNICEF also stated that Afghanistan is at risk of epidemic-prone diseases and that the number of measles cases in 2024 has increased compared to 2023.

UNICEF wrote: “Since the beginning of 2024, a total of 28,631 suspected measles cases and 126 deaths have been reported. Among the suspected cases 22,999, or 3.80% were children under five years old, and 12,937, or 2.45% were women.”

Mohammad Arif Hassanzai, one of the doctors in Kabul, said: “The reason is very simple; this is an extremely contagious disease, and those who are not vaccinated are highly at risk. When one case of measles is found in a family, the chances of other unvaccinated children in that family contracting it are high.”

According to the statistics of the Ministry of Public Health, nearly three thousand people contracted measles across the country in the first six months of 2023.