On Thursday, April 9, 2020, the "General Assembly to Fight Coronavirus Crisis in Herat" which is recently established by the Afghan Institute for Strategic Studies (AISS) with more than 40 members held an online roundtable discussion “Assessing Afghanistan Healthcare Capability to Fight Coronavirus; Challenges and Solutions”.
Dr. Abdulqadir Qadir, Policy and Planning Director at the Ministry of Public Health; Dr. Aziz Ahmad Jami, Professor, Faculty of Medicine University of Herat; and Dr. Khushal Nabizada, Public Health Specialist and Country Director of Action for Development, were the speakers of the program.
At the beginning of the program, Dr. Qadir stated that three basic dimensions of services in a country are accessibility, quality and efficiency; in other words, the available and limited resources should be used properly. The Ministry of Public Health works in six key areas: 1) good governance, 2) institutional development, 3) public health, 4) provide health services, 5) regulate human resources, and 6) monitor, evaluate, and make decisions based on evidence, he added. Further, he stressed that the Ministry of Public Health uses all available capacities to control and fight the coronavirus. Because of security concerns, most health workers work only in metropolitan and safe areas of the country, which is a challenge in itself, he emphasized.
In his opening remarks, Dr. Ahmad Jami assessed Afghanistan's health system and said that countries around the world, and Afghanistan in particular, were certainly not prepared to face this crisis. Afghanistan's healthcare system needed a codified strategy to deal with the emergency caused by the outbreak of the coronavirus, he believes. Moreover, he spoke about the critical situation of coronavirus outbreak in Herat in three areas: incidental, diagnostic and treatment. First, the entry of more than 100,000 returnees from Iran, and lack of a codified and regular policy for their systematic return to Herat. Also, shortage of medical resources and equipment, the centralized financial and administrative system of Afghanistan imposed the challenge. Meanwhile, he acknowledged that the lack of adequate testing, as well as the lack of a guidance and awareness strategy, posed a major challenge. In his closing remarks, Mr. Jami discussed the issue of treatment, saying that initially it was not necessary to build a corona-specific hospital in Herat, and that this could be solved by allocating 25 percent of the hospital's beds.
In closing, Dr. Khoshhal Nabizadeh summed up the important speeches of the speakers, and added that according to the words of the General Director of Policy and Plan of the Ministry of Public Health of Afghanistan, the measures taken by this ministry will reduce the citizens' concerns. The scenario is ready; first, the Ministry will have the capacity to accommodate 46,000 beds. Second, the Ministry will have the capacity to accommodate 100,000 beds. And third, this Ministry will have the capacity to accommodate 700,000 infected people.