Where We Work : Afghanistan : Health and Water
BRAC’s health programme in Afghanistan reaches more than 24 million people and has been an integral part of the organisation ever since we started working here. We are one of the major partners of the Afghan Ministry of Public Health to implement the Basic Package of Health Services and Essential Package of Health Services policies with the following programmes:
- Community Based Healthcare Project
- Community Health Promoters
- Community Midwifery Education
- Behavioural Change Communication Project
- Global Fund
- Tuberculosis Control Programme
- Performance Based Partnership Agreements
- Water and Sanitation
Community Based Healthcare Project
The main aim of this programme is to deliver quality healthcare services at the community level. We create and sustain awareness among the rural poor. The women are especially targeted to enable them to seek and practice their reproductive health rights.
Objectives:
- to reduce the maternal and infant mortality and morbidity
- to increase the number of contraceptive users
- to raise awareness on personal hygiene, use of safe water and sanitation
- to expand the availability of health services through community health promoters and workers
Home visits every month for 500,000 poor families
Every month in villages across Afghanistan, BRAC’s trained health promoters and workers provide door-to-door services to more than one million poor people.
Our health programme covers the entire community, not just our microfinance members, with particular attention given to the urgent and particular needs of pregnant women and young children.
We adopt a multi-faceted approach to reducing the health risks for poor communities in Afghanistan:
- Prevention of malaria, tuberculosis (TB), and HIV/AIDS
- Reduction of infant and under-five mortality rates
- Increased accessibility to health care
Our people alert the medical authorities to life threatening situations – especially complicated pregnancies, untreated TB, and malaria in children. We encourage the use of Government health facilities and free treatments and vaccinations.
The programme focuses on the following priority areas:
- Reproductive health care
- Malaria control
- TB control
- Family planning
- Community health initiatives
- Basic curative services
We have concluded that infant and maternal mortality rates will continue to be high in Afganistan if community midwives that are already entrusted to deliver babies are not adequately educated and trained in this critical service. Thus we have trained midwives in this education course to increase their capacity to safely deliver babies. By training these community midwives we hope to reduce maternal mortality, the leading cause of death in women in the developing world, as well as neonatal and child mortality.
Behavioural Change Communication Project
The purpose of this project is to improve health status of the population particularly maternal and child health through active participation of the community people. The programme focuses on the following priority areas:
- family planning
- community awareness on early signs of pregnancy and labour
- preparedness for pregnancy, labour and parenting
- essential newborn care
- neonatal and childhood illnesses
- breastfeeding and complementary feeding
- hygiene, water and sanitation
BRAC Afghanistan has been selected as Principal Recipient (PR) for both Malaria and Tuberculosis (TB) components of Global Fund Round 8. We are the joint recipient with the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) for the TB component and the joint recipient with Health Net TPO and the MoPH for the Malaria component.
Tuberculosis Control Programme
Following the introduction of Basic Public Health Services by the Government of Afghanistan, we established tuberculosis (TB) services in all of our health facilities. We accelerated our TB control programme with the support of the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Diseases “The Union” in January 2006.
Currently we’re providing TB treatment to nearly 32,000 patients.
BRAC Afghanistan has been implementing the following community based TB projects in the country:
Tuberculosis Control Assistance Programme
BRAC has expanded its tuberculosis (TB) diagnostic facilities through establishing 50 TB microscopy centres at different levels of healthcare settings during the first phase of the FIDELIS programme (January 2006 – March 2007). Another 92 TB microscopy centres are being established over the current phase of FIDELIS programme (July 2008 - December 2009).
Tuberculosis Control Assistance Programme
The tuberculosis control assistance programme (TB CAP) is a project supported by USAID in Afghanistan. The objective of the project is to improve the current TB control programme in Afghanistan. The project is implemented in a partnership of BRAC, Management Sciences for Health (MSH) and the World Health Organisation (WHO).
The programme focuses on the following priority areas:
- TB diagnosis
- Treatment
- Follow up treatment
- Outreach smearing services
Directly Observed Therapy (DOTS) is acknowledged globally as an effective approach for curing tuberculosis (TB). Our frontline community health promoters take up the responsibility to implement DOTS at the community level. The mechanism implies that all the TB patients gather at the health posts or an area selected by the community for regular and timely intake of vital medicines for TB treatment. This strategy helps tracking patients who miss even a single dose and therefore continuation of the treatment is ensured.
Performance Based Partnership Agreements
The purpose of the Performance-Based Partnership Agreements is to ensure quality Basic Public Health Services in health facilities and health posts. The project is performance based with targets specific to the type of facility. Every year, third-party evaluations take place to measure the progress of the project.
BRAC’s goal in this programme is to support the implementation of the Government of Afghanistan’s Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Policy which aims to provide basic water supply services for all.
Objectives:
- improved health through integration of health and hygiene education with water supply and sanitation
- community cost sharing
- ownership and management including operations and maintenance
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