The number of confirmed deaths from Covid-19 has exceeded 800 in Afghanistan after 33 new deaths reported on Thursday as the United Nations urged warring sides to redouble efforts to protect civilians amid escalating violence.
The Health ministry has detected 186 new Covid-19 infections from 519 tests, taking the total number of confirmed cases in the country to 32,022. There have been 16,041 recoveries. The war-torn country, which has admitted it lacks testing capacity, has tested 73,515 suspected patients since the outbreak began. The death toll stands at 807.
Kabul, the country’s worst affected city, recorded 23 new deaths and 61 cases. The capital has so far recorded 13,131 confirmed cases and 218 deaths.
Testing capacity remains low in Afghanistan and experts warn that the actual number of infections is much higher. Health ministry spokesman, Akmal Samsour, has said: “only patients with severe symptoms go to medical centres, so the actual number may be something between 150,000 and 1.5 million.”
Meanwhile, Ahmad Jawad Osmani, the country’s acting health minister, asked the warring sides on Wednesday to not target medical centres after violence intensified in recent days.
Osmani said:
Unfortunately, we have had 20 terrorist attacks on medical centres in the last six months across the country which left 14 medical workers dead and 20 wounded.
I ask the warring sides to not attack medical centres because we are not a political sector.
According to the health ministry 1,400 health workers have so far been infected to Covid-19 and 15 lost their lives from the virus. Osmani said that after traveling to provinces he found out that Kandahar, Zabul and Helmand were facing serious challenges in their fight against Covid-19.
The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan urged parties to redouble efforts at protecting civilians from harm and de-escalating the conflict in order to save lives. The UN said it is particularly concerned by a recent spate of violent incidents in which members of Afghanistan’s civil society have been targeted.
According to the report which was published on Thursday, in the first six months of 2020, preliminary figures indicate more than 800 civilians were killed and injured in deliberate attacks against civilians. The UN “attributed responsibility for approximately half of these civilian casualties to the Taliban.”