KABUL (Xinhua) – With hands trembling and tears streaming down her face, a grief-stricken mother reluctantly bid farewell to her infant, lost to the cruel grip of acute malnutrition, a devastating affliction that ravages countless children in Afghanistan.
Such a scene is not rare at the malnutrition ward of the Kabul-based Indira Gandhi Institute of Child Health, a major pediatric hospital in the war-ridden country.
Samiullal, a trainee doctor, told Xinhua that the hospital receives some 50 sick children diagnosed with malnutrition across the nation each day. Among them, 10 endure severe cases necessitating hospitalization or intensified medical intervention.
“Sometimes, there can be three deaths at the ward within one day,” he said.
Malnutrition comes with symptoms involving weight loss, reduced appetite, and tiredness. According to the latest analysis by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) on the malnutrition situation in Afghanistan, an estimated 4 million children and women are likely suffering from acute malnutrition through April 2023 and need urgent malnutrition intervention.
Eight doctors at the hospital’s malnutrition ward are offering their utmost help and treatment to the malnourished kids.
Following body checks and weighing for the patients, the medics provide the kids with the necessary milk prescribed over the next 24 hours. If the situation of any kid gets worse, the doctor would provide medicine.
Aqa Mohammad Shirzad, the head of the malnutrition ward, told Xinhua that the number of malnourished kids surges in summer.
Muzhda, a mother of a two-and-a-half-month-old child, took a seven-hour ride on sections of bombed bumpy road from the northern Baghlan Province, all the distress worthwhile for her just to see her skeletal baby in a stable condition after five days of treatment.
Some of the malnourished kids were born after the withdrawal of the U.S.-led forces in August 2021, seemingly luckier than those “war babies.” But these kids are facing an even graver humanitarian crisis as the U.S. government’s brutal sanctions are exacerbating the country’s financial paralysis, and consequently, hindering almost every support that Afghan kids need.
According to Shirzad, prior to the imposition of sanctions, the hospital used to admit around 600 malnourished children. However, since the freezing of approximately 7 billion U.S. dollars in assets of Afghanistan’s central bank by the Biden administration, that number has nearly doubled.