Number of children suffering from pneumonia are rising in Afghan

Key Takeaways:

• Days after being released from a hospital ward for the third time, 22-year-old Maryam sat with her infant son, who was coughing while covered in a red sweater.
• Numerous children are being admitted to hospitals with pneumonia, and other respiratory illnesses brought on by the cold, according to doctors and aid workers.
• Aid workers asserted that this year’s pollution levels were higher because more people were burning trash and plastic for heat.

At the beginning of winter in Kabul, 22-year-old Maryam sat with her infant son wrapped in a red sweater as he coughed days after being released from a hospital ward for the third time due to suspected pneumonia.

Rahmat’s parents claim that whenever they bring their 10-month-old son home from the crowded but warmer hospital, he becomes ill. The room’s temperature drops below freezing at night, and the parents claim they do what they can with their decreasing income to heat it.

“What is going to happen? I’m scared. Winter has just begun.” Maryam claimed that after her husband lost his construction job, the family could only afford to buy small amounts of coal and had to reduce their food consumption to pay for even that.

As an economic crisis grips the nation, the family is one of many in Afghanistan who cannot afford adequate heating, frequently having to choose between food and fuel.

According to doctors and aid workers, numerous children are being admitted to hospitals with pneumonia and other respiratory illnesses brought on by the cold and malnutrition.

According to aid organisations, the crisis is likely to worsen. Over 180 international organisations have suspended operations during the crucial winter months due to the ban on female NGO workers, claiming they cannot function in the conservative nation without helping female staff reach out to women and children.

Even before that, the economic shock brought on by the Taliban takeover in 2021 caused Afghanistan’s GDP to decline by 20% the previous year, leaving more than half the population dependent on humanitarian aid.

The banking system in Afghanistan has been severely hampered by foreign governments cutting back on development spending, enforcing Western sanctions, and freezing the assets of the nation’s central bank.

According to Mohammad Arif Hassanzai, director of internal medicine at Kabul’s Indira Gandhi Children’s Hospital, the economy is primarily to blame for the increase in patients.

According to hospital data, more than 6,700 kids were admitted for pneumonia, coughs, asthma, and other respiratory conditions in November, compared to roughly 3,700 in the same month the year before.

Even before the winter months, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which endorses several hospitals in Afghanistan, reported a 50% increase in paediatric pneumonia admissions in 2022 compared to the previous year.

According to Lucien Christen, the ICRC’s spokesperson in Kabul, “People have been dying of pneumonia this year, such as children,” adding that malnutrition was a factor in children’s weakened immune systems.

Aid workers claimed that more people burning trash and plastic for heat this year had increased pollution.

Babies were arranged two or three to a bed in the hospital’s pneumonia ward, being watched over by concerned parents and a small number of overworked medical personnel. While fathers crammed the hallways outside, some mothers held tiny oxygen masks to the faces of their infants.

Unexpectedly, a commotion started. Mohammad, a baby just one-month-old, stopped breathing, and his lips turned blue. His frightened uncle was told to go to a specialised emergency unit two floors below while holding the child in a green blanket. The mother of the infant trailed behind him as he hurried downstairs.

Mohammad was fitted with an oxygen tube in the high-dependency unit, which was attached to his nose. According to the doctor, he was in critical condition, and stabilisation would take five days.

The infant’s mother stayed by his bedside. She claimed that they could not pay for heating because her husband had lost his job. As she watched her son stop breathing, she said, “it felt like my own heart had stopped.”