The Taliban administration has issued a verbal order to stop corneal transplant surgeries in medical centers across Afghanistan. This decision has led to the suspension of a charitable free treatment program and has left patients waiting indefinitely for care.<\/p>\n
The Noor Eye Specialty Hospital in Kabul, which had performed over 90 such surgeries in recent months, halted its surgical operations after receiving this directive. A similar program at the Jalalabad Eye Hospital has also been suspended.<\/p>\n
Corneal transplantation is a crucial treatment method for severe eye injuries, helping to restore vision for many patients. Most of those needing this surgery in Afghanistan are individuals who suffered eye injuries due to explosions, work accidents, or other incidents.<\/p>\n
Shortages of specialists and donated corneal tissue have been cited as major challenges facing the Afghan eye care system. The North American Pakistani Physicians Association, which has provided free treatment using donated corneas in Pakistan since 2017, expanded its activities into Afghanistan this year and had facilitated over 150 surgeries before the halt.<\/p>\n
Fawad Zafar, head of the corneal transplant program at this association, told The Telegraph that the program was launched about four months ago, but the suspension has seriously disrupted its operation. He has called on the Taliban administration to allow the surgeries to resume.<\/p>\n
Many patients, such as Salamat Khan, a sugarcane vendor in Kabul who lost his sight in an explosion, and Khadija Begum from Jalalabad, who sustained an eye injury from a blast, remain on the waiting list despite being registered for surgery and are still hoping to regain their vision.<\/p>\n
The Taliban\u2019s Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice had previously banned the buying and selling of human organs, including kidneys, livers, and eyes. However, it has not clarified whether this ban extends to donated organs used for medical treatment.<\/p>\n
Doctors say the suspension of surgeries was based on religious considerations, despite the fact that all corneas used in the program were obtained through voluntary donation and no fees were charged to patients. This decision has halted a vital support project for vulnerable patients and left them uncertain about their treatment prospects.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Taliban has halted corneal transplant surgeries in Afghanistan, disrupting free treatment programs and leaving patients with severe eye injuries waiting indefinitely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24875,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,17,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","category-important-news","category-top-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24876"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24876\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}