UN releases funds to save Afghan health system from collapse

The UN aid chief releases $45m in emergency funds in a bid to boost life-saving support in Afghanistan.

The United Nations aid chief has released $45m in emergency funds to Afghanistan in a bid to prevent Afghanistan’s battered healthcare system from collapsing.

Martin Griffiths, the UN’s under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, said in a statement on Wednesday that he was releasing funds from the UN’s Central Emergency Response Fund to boost life-saving support in Afghanistan.

“Allowing Afghanistan’s healthcare delivery system to fall apart would be disastrous,” he said, adding that medicines, medical supplies and fuel were running out and that essential healthcare workers were not being paid.