Many women lost their husbands in the landslide and face the burden of caring for their children alone18 May 2014 – People living in Abe Barak village in Badakhshan, north-east Afghanistan, faced destruction and devastation in their community when a landslide buried around 300 homes in up to 50 metres of mud, leaving many villagers with nothing.  Accounting for...

Supplies delivered to flood-affected areas in AfghanistanKabul,12 May 2014 –Heavy rainfall since 24 April has resulted in flash floods in northern Afghanistan where 675 people have lost their lives and more than 16 000people remain displaced. Recently, three more provinces have experienced flooding, bringing the number of people affected to...

One of the major health concerns during floods is the risk of communicable disease due to interruptions in safe water and sanitation services Heavy rainfall from 24 to 25 April 2014 resulted in flash floods across 10 provinces in northern, north-east and western Afghanistan. Initial reports indicate that Jawzjan province is the worst affected....

World Health Day, commemorating the founding of WHO, is celebrated on 7 April each year, but due to the elections was celebrated on 9 April 2014 this year in Kabul, Afghanistan. The theme of this year's day was vector-borne diseases. In her address, the Minister of Public Health H.E. Dr Suraya Dalil highlighted the health toll and economic burden...

The photographs have been produced with the support of the National Stop TB Partnership in Afghanistan and WHOThe photography exhibition "STOP TB - The Afghanistan Portraits" is an exhibition of portraits of people with TB taken by the international humanitarian photographer Laura Salvinelli in western Afghanistan. TB is a disease of poverty. In...

Kabul, 8 December, 2013 – The Ministry of Public Health and its UN partners on 8December 2013 announced the introduction of two action plans to further reduce maternal, neonatal and child deaths in the country. While great progress has been made in recent years, maternal and child mortality rates in Afghanistan remains among the highest in the...

Hundreds of infants in Afghanistan received their first shots against pneumococcal disease today targeting the country’s biggest child killer – pneumonia Kabul, 7 December, 2013 - As part of the Government of Afghanistan’s ongoing efforts to improve the health of the country’s future generations, H.E. Hamid Karzai, President of Afghanistan,...

According to the data for 2010, 80% of visual impairment, including blindness, is avoidable. The two main causes of visual impairment in the world are uncorrected refractive errors (42%) and cataract (33%) although cost-effective interventions to reduce the burden of both conditions exist in all countriesKabul, 9 October – World Sight Day 2013 was...

The health information system is the backbone of the health system. It includes a range of population-based and health facility-based data sources.Kabul, 15 September 2013 – The Ministry of Public Health, the Central Statistics Organization (CSO), and the Civil Registration Directorate of the Ministry of Interior, with technical and financial...

Lack of access to appropriate care is one of the many factors that magnify the stigma associated with mental illness and with suicidal ideation and behaviour.Kabul, 11 September – World Suicide Prevention Day 2013 was celebrated in Afghanistan this year under the slogan of “Stigma – a major barrier to suicide prevention”. Suicide is a growing...