This article was originally published by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and is reprinted with permission.
Shahabuddin had a brush with death when floods ripped through his community and washed away his home in northern Afghanistan.
Having survived one near-death experience, Shahabuddin soon encountered another foe: disease.
“Within 24 hours, I was so weak that I could barely walk,” the father of four, who lives in the province of Baghlan, told RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi.
Shahabuddin is among the nearly 47,000 Afghans who have contracted cholera so far this year, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
A highly infectious bacterial disease, cholera spreads through contaminated food and water and results in acute diarrhea, fever, and dehydration. If untreated, it can lead to death.
At least 25 people have died of the disease so far in 2024 in Afghanistan, which has the highest number of cases in the world, according to a WHO report released on June 19.
Experts said a series of natural disasters, including floods that devastated swaths of northern and central Afghanistan in the spring and the country’s crumbling health-care system, are behind the sharp rise in cases.
‘No Access To Clean Water’
Sharafat Zaman Amar, a spokesman for the Taliban’s Ministry of Health, said Afghanistan “does not have any confirmed” cases of cholera.
But Faridullah Omari, a physician at the National Infectious Disease Hospital in Kabul, said each day the hospital receives up to 80 patients who are suffering from water-borne diseases like cholera.
He suggested the cholera outbreak has been fueled by lack of hygiene and more people drinking unsafe water.
Communities affected by the recent floods, which killed hundreds and impacted tens of thousands of people, said the deluges destroyed much of the water supply and infrastructure in the region. They also said there was a severe shortage of medicines available to treat infectious diseases like cholera.
“People don’t have access to clean water,” said Sharifullah, a resident of the northern province of Sar-e Pol, which was hit by floods.
“All the water is muddy from the floods,” he told Radio Azadi. “But people use this [dirty] water, and they don’t have the means to clean it. So people, especially children, are suffering from diarrhea.”
Khodayaqal, a resident of Baghlan, said they have little access to health-care facilities after the mobile clinics deployed by aid agencies and the Taliban government in the aftermath of the floods left.
“Our children are battling with diseases,” he told Radio Azadi. “We have one clinic here, but it doesn’t have any medicine.”
In its report, the WHO said diminishing stocks of cholera vaccines, as well as population growth, natural disasters, and climate change, have led to cholera outbreaks.
The public health-care system in Afghanistan, which was largely funded by foreign aid for nearly two decades, has been in free-fall since the Taliban takeover in 2021. The militants’ seizure of power led international donors to immediately cut financial funding.
Hundreds of health facilities have been closed in the past three years, with no funds to pay the salaries of doctors and nurses. Hospitals that are still open suffer from severe shortages of medicine.
While some foreign aid organizations continue to operate in Afghanistan, many of them have been forced to curb their work as international funding diminishes.
