Pakistan to send medical team to Afghanistan for 'emergent assistance'
A family is seen at the intensive care unit at the Indira Gandhi hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan October 24, 2021. PHOTO: REUTERS
Pakistan is set to send a medical team to Afghanistan to provide, install and maintain medical equipment at three of its funded hospitals in Jalalabad, Logar and Kabul, as part of the humanitarian assistance to the war-stricken country.
Islamabad has also announced the provision of medicines to the tune of Rs500 million to the country at the earliest.
According to officials having the knowledge of the latest developments on Afghan humanitarian assistance, private pharmaceutical industry donors have also announced additional assistance of medicines worth Rs40 million for Afghanistan.
A delegation from the pharmaceutical industry will also be visiting Afghanistan for investment and to assist indigenous medicine production in Afghanistan, they added.
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The assistance is in addition to medical visa facilitation for patients at crossing points and the provision of emergency/life-saving medicines to Afghanistan. Pakistan earlier announced in-kind assistance of Rs5 billion to cater to healthcare needs of Afghans as the winter season sets in.
Besides polio eradication coordination under the immunisation programme assistance, the country agreed to provide training for capacity enhancement and institutional building of the Afghan healthcare system.
On Monday, Pakistan offered to host the extraordinary meeting of the foreign ministers of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) on the current situation in Afghanistan after Saudi Arabia, the OIC summit chair, took the initiative to convene the meeting of top diplomats of the 57-member body.
“Afghanistan is a founding member of the OIC. As part of the Ummah, we are bound by fraternal bonds of amity and brotherhood with the people of Afghanistan,” Qureshi said.