HIGHLIGHTS According to MOPH data as of 20 December, 50,677 people in Afghanistan have tested positive for COVID-19; 2,110 have died and 39,158 have recovered. Since the start of March, partners have medically screened 536,363 people at points-of-entry, provided 310,026 people with psychosocial support to cope with the mental health effects of COVID-19 and distributed more than 5.4 million bars of soap in 376 districts across the country. Since the start of the pandemic, more than 1.3 million PPE items have been delivered to the Ministry of Public Health and frontline NGO workers in Afghanistan.
SITUATION OVERVIEW MOPH Figures: MoPH data shows that as of 20 December, 50,677 people across all 34 provinces in Afghanistan are confirmed to have had COVID-19. Some 39,158 people have recovered, and 2,110 people have died – at least 86 of whom are healthcare workers. Only 189,385 people out of a population of 36.7 million have been tested. Afghanistan now has a test-positivity-rate – positive tests as a percentage of total tests – of 28 per cent, suggesting overall under-testing of potential cases. The majority of recorded deaths were men between the ages of 50 and 79. Men account for 68 per cent of the total COVID-19 confirmed cases in the MoPH data, although this may be the result of over-representation of men in testing. Due to limited public health resources and testing capacity, lack of people coming forward for testing, as well as the absence of a national death register, confirmed cases of and deaths from COVID-19 are likely to be under-reported overall in Afghanistan. This is supported by the results of an early seropositivity study by MoPH, Johns Hopkins and WHO that estimated 30 per cent of the population had been exposed to COVID-19 by June 2020. Stigma is considered a major factor in people choosing not to get tests and risk communications work is critical to turning this around. WHO warns that widespread complacency and failure to follow public health advice is creating grave risks in the community with people generally not observing physical distancing or mask wearing protocols.