Dr. Ghani, the President of Afghanistan, and Dr. Abdullah-Abdullah, the Chief Executive of Afghanistan are aware of the challenges they face with improving their health care system. Some problems include: religious beliefs, some Afghan people believe that is is unnatural to vaccinate their children, the amount of trained health care workers, and quality compromised services (1).
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One large challenge they face is limited access to care based on location since many people live in rural areas (2). To work on this problem they have started working with members of the community to reach these children in need. The largest problem they face is investors to support the immunization program and without proper funding there is not much the program can do to protect children from this disease (1). Afghanistan relies mostly on outside funding to be able to run the immunization program they need (1).
The President and Executive Chief of Afghanistan are hoping to contract out the immunization program so that they can immunize children in a more efficient manner (3).
Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) held a meeting in August 2019 called the Afghanistan Technical Advisory Group (TAG). In attendance were multiple high ministry positions as well as WHO and UNICEF country representatives for Afghanistan and crucial partners of GPEI including BMGF, CDC, and Rotary International. TAG has studied the needs to address high risk and very high risk areas in the region. They have compiled an extensive amount of research on the needs, resources and strategies for Polio eradication in Afghanistan.
References:
1. World Health Organization (WHO). 2018. Country Cooperation Strategy at a Glance. Retrieved
from: https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/136852/ccsbrief_afg_en.pdf.
2. Global Polio Eradication Initiative. 2019. Retrieved from: http://polioeradication.org/where-we-work/.
3. World Health Organization (WHO). 2019. Pakistan and Afghanistan: the final wild poliovirus bastion. Retrieved
from: https://www.who.int/news-room/feature-stories/detail/pakistan-and-afghanistan-the-final-wild-poliovirus-bastion.
1. World Health Organization (WHO). 2018. Country Cooperation Strategy at a Glance. Retrieved
from: https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/136852/ccsbrief_afg_en.pdf.
2. Global Polio Eradication Initiative. 2019. Retrieved from: http://polioeradication.org/where-we-work/.
3. World Health Organization (WHO). 2019. Pakistan and Afghanistan: the final wild poliovirus bastion. Retrieved
from: https://www.who.int/news-room/feature-stories/detail/pakistan-and-afghanistan-the-final-wild-poliovirus-bastion.