Afghan President Ashraf Ghani in an address to the Special Session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in Response to the Coronavirus Disease COVID-19 Pandemic on Thursday called on the world to ensure the delivery of COVID-19 vaccine to all nations including Afghanistan.

“The role of multilateral organizations in the joint distribution of the vaccine will be critical. Our call for the vaccine to be a global public good must be loud and clear,” Ghani said.

Ghani stated that the COVID 19 pandemic came to Afghanistan at the end of February via Herat province.  

“Countries in special situations have been especially hard hit. For example, we as a poor country, like many others around the globe, were not able to design and implement effective stimulus packages. We also had to be very careful in instituting lockdowns to avoid inflicting serious damage on our economy and peoples’ livelihoods, which could have inflicted more suffering than the virus itself,” Ghani said.

Ghani also said: “The pandemic transformed the way we do business, the way we communicate, the way we live. But it’s not all negative. COVID pushed the digitalization of the world at a speed that was inconceivable. And moving into subsequent waves of the pandemic, we need to embrace digital technology to further a global dialogue around policy, accessing and distributing the vaccine. To take advantage of these technologies, more must, however, be done to address the digital divide.”

He said the second wave of the pandemic "is at our doorstep" and that "we face this wave during the winter season, with very little understanding of how cold weather, particularly under conditions of poverty, will affect the nature of the pandemic."

The Presidential Palace said that officials from the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank in their meeting with President Ghani have assured that the international community will ensure funding the first phase of the COVID-19 vaccination and that the process will be carried out jointly by the Afghan government and the donors.

Latest COVID-19 figures in Afghanistan

The Ministry of Public Health on Thursday reported 132 new positive cases of COVID-19 out of 1,429 samples tested in the last 24 hours.    

The Public Health Ministry also reported six deaths and 45 recoveries from COVID-19 in the same period.

The new cases were reported in Kabul (16), Herat (16), Kandahar (11), Balkh (21), Paktia (9), Kunduz (17), Baghlan (12), Nimroz (9), Badghis (3), Logar (1), Ghazni (1), Helmand (11), Ghor (4), Panjshir (9), and Zabul (1) provinces.  

The deaths were reported in Kabul (1), Kandahar (3), and Paktika (2) provinces, according to data provided by the Ministry of Public Health.    

The data by the ministry shows that the cumulative number of total cases is now 47,388, the number of total reported deaths is 1,847, and the total number of recoveries is 37,347.    

So far, 155,916 samples have been tested in government centers and there are 8,194 known active COVID-19 cases in the country, data by the ministry indicates.

The number of deaths from COVID-19 globally is more than 1,506,601 and the number of known global coronavirus cases is 65,235,456, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Afghan health officials have said that the second wave of COVID-19 will be more dangerous.

What do ordinary people think about COVID-19? 

“This is a highly dangerous virus and it has affected the entire world,” Younus, a resident in Kabul.

“We must wear face masks and avoid going to areas where there is a rush,” said Ehsan, a resident in Kabul.

“There is no jobs in the country, but the government is not addressing this issue,” said Ahmad Shah, a resident in Kabul.

“In case of a lockdown, they must come in support of the people so that they can sit at home,” said Gul Hussain Haidari, a resident in Kabul.