The government of Afghanistan announced on Monday that it had recorded 285 new cases of the Chinese coronavirus in the previous 24 hours, Afghan news agency Khaama Press reported.
The news comes as an attack on Tuesday of a Kabul hospital by armed gunmen — who targeted a maternity ward, killing 14 people, including babies — demonstrates how regional insecurity coupled with Afghanistan’s failing healthcare system leaves the country poorly equipped to combat the coronavirus pandemic.
On Tuesday, armed militants stormed the government-run Barchi Hospital in Kabul, the capital, Khaama Press and Al Jazeera reported. Three attackers disguised as police officers entered the hospital and began shooting and launching grenades, Afghanistan government officials said. The gunmen initiated a shootout with Afghan security forces that lasted hours.
The attack, which seemed to target a maternity ward in the hospital run by Doctors Without Borders, according to Al Jazeera, killed 14 people, including two infants, their mothers, and a number of nurses. Afghan security forces eventually ended the standoff with the gunmen and evacuated about 100 people from the hospital, according to Khaama Press.
The organization and motive behind the attack remain unknown at press time, although Afghan terror group the Taliban claimed on Tuesday it was not responsible for the attack.
Afghanistan’s total number of coronavirus cases increased to 4,963 on Tuesday, with 127 deaths. Most of the new infections have been recorded in the capital, Kabul, according to Wahid Majroh, Afghanistan’s Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) spokesman. Speaking to the press on Monday, Majroh said that health authorities tested 365 people for coronavirus from Sunday to Monday and 161 people tested positive.
Majroh advised the public that “the spread of the [Chinese corona]virus will not end very soon,” urging citizens to follow social distancing and lockdown guidelines currently in place in Afghanistan meant to curb the spread of the virus.
In late March, MoPH chief Ferozuddin Feroz warned that Afghanistan could “turn into another Wuhan or Qom” if the country failed to take health precautions against the coronavirus pandemic at the time.
The Chinese coronavirus first emerged in the city of Wuhan, China, at the end of 2019, and the subsequent outbreak of the virus there was one of the worst in the world. Qom was the first Iranian city to report coronavirus infections; it also experienced a horrific outbreak that spread to the rest of the country.
Afghanistan shares borders with both China and Iran. Global health authorities believe that the Chinese coronavirus initially spread to Afghanistan from Iran. Afghan authorities have been criticized in recent months for their failure to properly screen, test, and quarantine roughly 115,000 Afghan refugees who returned from Iran since the end of last year.
The blunder has been blamed for the country’s exponential increase in coronavirus cases over subsequent months. It also supports the belief by health authorities that the true number of coronavirus cases in Afghanistan is much higher than officially documented. Health authorities cite insufficient coronavirus testing due to a lack of medical supplies as a major factor preventing the country from properly addressing the pandemic.
Afghanistan’s failing healthcare system — a symptom of the war-torn nation’s political and economic instability — was already struggling before the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. Now, with the country’s number of coronavirus infections growing, Afghanistan’s hospitals are ill-prepared to cope with the pandemic, as demonstrated by Tuesday’s attack on the Kabul hospital.