Afghanistan: Pneumonia spreads as winter deaths top 800

[sabra]

Source: IRIN

KABUL, 14 February 2008 (IRIN) - Over 170,000 patients with pneumonia and other acute respiratory infections have been diagnosed and treated at health centres across Afghanistan in the past month, the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) has reported.

At least 100 pneumonia patients, most of them children, died in the same period, Abdullah Fahim, a spokesman for MoPH, told IRIN on 14 February.

Among the victims were seven children in Badakhshan Province, northeastern Afghanistan, where a medical team from the UK charity Merlin treated 270 pneumonia patients on 30 January.

On arrival in snow-covered Shar-e-Buzorg District of Badakhshan the team was "soon overwhelmed by people seeking help while some were lying in the snow", according to Sophia Craig, head of Merlin in Afghanistan.

...

Parts of Afghanistan are facing their harshest winter in 25 years, and over 800 people have lost their lives, according to Afghanistan's National Disasters Management Authority (ANDMA).

Read more: http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/EVOD-7BTGUX?OpenDocument&rc=3&emid=AV-2008-000003-AFG

[libodem]

1. That is sad as hell

we invade and they are still living in the stone age. Wonder if the CIA dropped some biologicals around to get people they couldn't bomb? I blame Cheneybush for al the f-ing misery in the world. They ruined MY planet.

[sabra]

2. I saw Charlie's War last month - the scenes where they visit

the refugee camps.. I was thinking how circular things are :-(

[libodem]

3. Must have been

a very good movie. I read a Ken Folett book sometime ago about the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, which filled me with compassion for the devastation of war, on a personal level. Can't remember the name of it now. It is cold and mountainous there, to be sick with pneumonia, would be the crowning blow.