Afghanistan healthcare crisis: clinic closures, funding gaps, outbreaks
Recent Developments
012025-03-04: WHO said 167 health facilities had shut down, affecting 1.6 million people across 25 provinces.
022025-03-17: WHO warned that 80% of its supported facilities in Afghanistan were at risk of shutdown by June because of funding shortages.
032025-03-18: WHO reported more than 16,000 suspected measles cases and 111 deaths in the first two months of 2025, with vaccination coverage at 51% for the first dose and 37% for the second.
042025: WHO’s Health Emergency Appeal said more than 22.9 million people needed urgent health support in Afghanistan.
Interventions
- WHO-supported essential health services and emergency coordination for Afghanistan’s health response.
- Humanitarian health programming by aid organizations, including support for primary care, immunization, maternal-child health, nutrition, and outbreak response.
What Works
- Sustained funding for primary care and WHO-supported facilities prevents abrupt shutdowns and preserves access to lifesaving services.
- Measles immunization and outbreak surveillance are critical in this setting because low coverage and disrupted coordination are directly linked to rising suspected cases and deaths.
How to Help
- Donate to credible humanitarian health organizations supporting Afghanistan’s clinics, immunization, and emergency care.
- Support organizations providing maternal health, child nutrition, and outbreak response in Afghanistan.
- Advocate for sustained humanitarian funding and protection of health services through elected representatives and aid policymakers.
Make an Impact
Donate directly to 13 verified organizations working on this crisis. Every contribution makes a difference.
Donate to Organizations ↓Coming soon: one-click donations distributed across all organizations via our impact protocol.
Raise Awareness
Can't donate? You can still make a huge impact. Join others in amplifying this cause globally by sharing it with your network.
Verified Organizations
Organizations Helping(21)
MSF’s strategy is to deliver *direct, fast, and independent* medical assistance in places where people are in immediate danger and routine health systems cannot function.[2][4][6] The organization emphasizes medical impartiality and neutrality, meaning it treats people according to need rather than nationality, politics, religion, or other status markers, and it relies on financial independence to reduce external influence over its work.[4][6] Operationally, MSF combines rapid emergency deployment with long-term field presence when crises become protracted.[1][4][6] Teams of clinicians, logisticians, epidemiologists, mental health specialists, and other staff adapt services to local conditions, often working alongside local personnel in highly insecure environments; MSF also uses public advocacy when it believes witness testimony and pressure are needed to improve access to care or address systemic barriers.[1][4][5][6]
The Afghanistan program has closed some community resource centers because of aid cuts, but it remains active in the country. NRC Afghanistan’s approach is to provide integrated support to displaced and crisis-affected people, which helps address the healthcare collapse indirectly by improving access to shelter, food, information, and referral pathways when health facilities shut down.
Save the Children is responding to Sudan’s education collapse by running emergency education services, including classes for children whose schooling has been disrupted, support for formal and non-formal learning, and programming across multiple states. It reports providing learning services and materials to hundreds of thousands of children, supporting hundreds of schools, and using accelerated learning, psychosocial support, teacher training, and child-centered reintegration approaches to help children catch up after prolonged closures.
Operates health clinics and hospitals offering primary care, maternal services, and disease control, continuing operations despite funding shortfalls by importing medicines and maintaining staff, helping to mitigate facility closures and support public health emergencies like measles and malnutrition in rural areas.
