Source: United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs - Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN)

Date: 23 Jul 2008

KABUL, 23 July 2008 (IRIN) - Up to 100,000 people have been deprived of access to basic health services in different parts of Afghanistan over the past four months, due largely to worsening insecurity, with attacks on health workers and health centres, the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) said.

The new figure is in addition to the over 300,000 people who last year lost access to primary health facilities, mostly in the volatile south and southeast.

"Currently some 400,000 people in the country do not have access to basic health services because of attacks on health personnel and health centres, and also due to lack of security for health workers," Abdullah Fahim, a spokesman for the MoPH, told IRIN in Kabul on 23 July.

About 32 health centres were torched, destroyed and/or closed down due to insecurity in 2007. Over the past four months 19 health facilities have been shut down or attacked, MoPH said. 

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