Following a UN agency’s warning of a cholera outbreak in the quake-hit area, the spokesperson of the Taliban’s Ministry of Public Health said on Sunday that thousands of people affected by the fatal earthquake in southeast Afghanistan need access to clean water, food, and are highly susceptible to diseases.
After Wednesday’s earthquake, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) said that measures were being taken to prevent an outbreak of cholera in Afghanistan. It noted that 500,000 instances of acute, watery diarrhea had already been recorded, according to Reuters.
In a statement on Thursday, UNOCHA stated that cholera outbreaks following earthquakes were “of particular and serious concern.” “Preparations are being made to prevent an outbreak.”
The bulk of people are still living in the earthquake-damaged neighborhoods despite the fact that hospitals in Kabul have opened their facilities to earthquake affected people.
According to the spokesperson for Afghanistan’s Health Ministry, Sharafat Zaman, “the people are desperately in need of food and clean water.” He added that while officials had for the time being managed medicines, dealing with those who had lost their houses would be difficult.
Taliban, who are struggling financially, have requested foreign aid. A number of international organizations and countries have planned to offer support, including the United Nations.
“We ask the international community, humanitarian organisations to help us for food and medicine, the survivor might catch diseases because they don’t have proper houses and shelters for living,” the spokesperson for the Taliban’s Ministry of Public Health said.
For countries that had put sanctions on Afghan government entities and banks, halting direct aid, and causing a humanitarian crisis even before the earthquake, providing aid to thousands of Afghans remains a difficulty.
