Communicable disease control in Afghanistan

Among public health challenges in Afghanistan, communicable diseases still predominate because the epidemiologic transition to chronic disease has not yet occurred. Afghanistan's 10-year journey to improve its response to communicable disease is reflected in varying degrees of progress and innovation, all while long-standing conflict and geographic inaccessibility limit outreach and effective service delivery to vulnerable populations. Although Afghanistan is close to achieving polio elimination, other reportable communicable diseases are only slowly achieving their goals and objectives through targeted, sustained programmatic efforts. The introduction of disease early warning systems has allowed for identification and investigation of outbreaks within 48 hours. Tuberculosis case detection has risen over the last 10 years, and treatment success rates have been sustained at World Health Organization targets over the last 5 years at 85%. These successes are in large part due to increased government commitme...