KABUL: The United Nations children’s fund (UNICEF) has urged the Taliban’s caretaker government to resume children’s vaccination amid fear of spreading polio and measles in war-affected Afghanistan.
“The health system is about to collapse, we have weeks, not months or years. We will have humanitarian catastrophe,” UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Omar Abdi was quoted as saying in a statement on Twitter last Sunday.
Abdi, who recently ended a four-day visit to Afghanistan and neighbouring Pakistan, stressed the need for children access to basic healthcare, immunization, nutrition, water and sanitation and child protection services.
Quoted by the statement, Abdi called for an immediate resumption of measles and Covid-19 immunization campaigns to help protect children and communities from vaccine-preventable diseases.
Several cases of polio and measles were reported in Afghanistan as the vaccination campaign had been affected following Taliban’s takeover in mid-August.