"Nearly six years of Taliban rule and a decade-long
war with Russia that ended in 1989 has left Afghanistan's health-care
infrastructure in a shambles. Nearly two-thirds of the Afghan
population is without access to basic health-care facilities,
and according to the World Health Organization (WHO), the situation
is worse in rural areas, with a doctor-patient ratio as low as
1 to 100,000. Infant and maternal mortality rates in Afghanistan
are among the highest in the world. One in four children will
not reach the age of five, most dying of vaccine-preventable diseases
like polio and tuberculosis. And every year, 17,000 women die
from complications related to childbearing."
"Women are especially vulnerable."
Because of the great need for health care for
women in Afghanistan, funds are being raised to distribute the
book Where Women Have No Doctor (WWHND): A Health Guide
for Women.
This book, published in Dari language, will be given to all of
the women teachers in the Afghan Teacher Education Project (ATEP)
at the University of Nebraska
at Omaha. Each book costs $20.
According to the authors of WWHND: "This book
was written to help women care for their own health, and to help
community health workers or others meet, women's health needs."
