Education centers in Afghanistan closed amid surge in COVID-19 cases

The Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) of Afghanistan on Saturday announced that schools and universities in 16 provinces will remain closed for two weeks to contain the spread of the third wave of COVID-19.

The Ministry said that public and private schools, universities, and training centers will remain closed in Kabul, Ghazni, Helmand, Kandahar, Logar, Nangarhar, Paktia, Parwan, Maidan Wardak, Panjshir, Balkh, Laghman, Badakhshan, Kapisa, Kunduz, and Nimroz provinces.

This comes as 20 people have died of the coronavirus in the last 24 hours in the country, the Ministry stated.

According to the Ministry’s daily statistics, 654 new infections have been recorded during this period.

The total number of people infected people with the coronavirus has risen to 70761 of which 2919 have died and another 57281 have been recovered.

Meanwhile, in a joint press conference the ministry of health, higher education, and ministry of education called on the people to adhere to the health instructions.

Majroh warned that if people do not cooperate, “we have to change all the houses to beds (isolation ward) and all the people will be affected by the virus,” said Wahid Majroh, Health Minister.

“We can manage to deal with the third wave of coronavirus if people give a hand,” he said.

Acting Minister of Education Rangina Hamidi hopes the situation gets better in the next two weeks and that “we will be able to resume schools and students and teachers in provinces where the education process is normal are required to follow the health instructions recommended by the Health Ministry.”

Abas Basir, Minister of Higher Education stated that following the decision of the Committee to Fight Coronavirus, all public and private universities in 16 provinces of the country have been closed for two weeks.