Afghanistan is in the midst of the world’s greatest humanitarian crisis according to the World Health Organization. With extreme poverty levels and the collapse of the healthcare system, many patients have been left without care since the last government. Cancer exacerbates the healthcare emergency as there is not a single cancer center or radiation treatment facility in the entire country for over 40 million people.
The statistics in Afghanistan are incomplete; however, the Health Management Information System (HMIS) of the Health Ministry and WHO suggest there are approximately 400,000 to 600,000 cancer patients in Afghanistan. This includes:
Proximately half of all cancer patients will require radiation therapy. Given the poverty rate of close to 70%, very few can afford to go abroad for care. Patients with advanced disease that requires radiation treatment are left without adequate options. Without a single radiation facility for treatment, children and mothers with advanced cancers suffer intense pain during their end stages.
The aforementioned statistics speak to the urgent need for the rehabilitation, facilitation, and construction of oncology hospitals in order to save hundreds of thousands of lives and alleviate immeasurable suffering. The first step in this process is to create radiation treatment facilities. Currently, there is limited chemotherapy and surgery available in Afghanistan, and absolutely no radiation treatment facilities.
Thus, we propose to create the first two radiation facilities in Afghanistan.
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