The Qatari Ministry of Health made great medical efforts to support Afghan evacuees and provide them with the necessary health services, as it carried out many activities that included the following:
- Cooperating with other ministries in Qatar to build an emergency field hospital, additional shelters, and mobile toilets.
- Al-Wakra Hospital, one of the largest and best hospitals in Qatar, was qualified to receive and treat refugee patients and fully allocated to them. This helped deal with the challenges of transferring patients from one hospital to another as patients were treated in one location.
- Providing essential medical supplies, which included trauma and COVID-19 kits. “This timely response is in line with our humanitarian vision to enhance existing assistance efforts, and contributes to universal health coverage and addressing global health challenges,” said Saleh Al Marri, Assistant Minister of Public Health.
- The Qatari Ministry of Health and HMC surveyed the spread of COVID-19 among evacuated Afghan evacuees. The results showed that only 16 people out of 7,834 were confirmed infected. This indicated that evacuees did not pose a COVID-19 threat. The results were published in JAMA Network Open.
- Assistant Minister of Public Health Saleh Al-Marri attended the meeting of the WHO, UNICEF, Qatar, and partners to discuss interim health priorities in Afghanistan.
- Qatar hosted a training course on quality and patient safety in fragile, vulnerable, and conflict-affected settings, organized by the WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean, targeting participants from health facilities in Afghanistan.
- Al Marri took part in a roundtable discussion with the Afghan Ministry of Health and the WHO to coordinate efforts for polio eradication in Afghanistan.
Through such tireless efforts, the Qatari Ministry of Health helped provide the required medical support during the crisis and proved its ability to provide the necessary assistance to Afghan evacuees.
