After suffering decades of war, the Afghan people are rebuilding their country. Learn how REACH, in partnership with the Ministry of Public Health, is helping to revitalize the nation's health sector—and changing lives in the process.

» DOTS Expansion Brings Hope to Afghan TB Patients
   March 2006
Seventeen-year-old Wasil is one of the 76,000 Afghans with a new, active tuberculosis (TB) case this year; without treatment half of those infected will succumb to the disease. As a child, Wasil watched his mother die of TB, but when her all-too-familiar symptoms—persistent cough, loss of appetite, weight loss, and fever—frighteningly became his own, Wasil had access to a Comprehensive Health Center (CHC) operated by IMC, a REACH NGO grantee. At the CHC, sputum smear examination confirmed a diagnosis of TB, and Wasil began directly observed therapy, short course (DOTS).

» A New Twist to an Old Tradition: The Afghan Women's Shura-e-Sehi
   February 2006
To forge strong relationships between local health facilities and the communities they serve, REACH has established both men's and women's shura-e-sehi, or community health committees, at both the health facility and health post levels

» Women's Voices in the Learning for Life Initiative in Afghanistan
   Kabul, January 2006
Afghan women desperately need health care, but in a traditional, Islamic society, many families demand that the care come only from female health providers, who are in short supply. In far too many cases, especially in rural areas, where the bulk of the population live, the absence of a female provider results in another woman's death.

» Learning for Life—Door to a Brighter Future for Afghan Women
   Kabul, November 2005
This fall throughout Kabul and Herat provinces, the first of more than 9,000 Afghan women enrolled in Learning for Life (LfL), an accelerated adult literacy initiative, are completing their classes. Among them are the 29 women from village of BegToot, in Kabul Province's Paghman district.

» A Formula for Success—USAID Grants and REACH Technical Assistance
   Kabul, October 2005
In October 2003, REACH awarded $35 million in USAID funds to 13 national and international NGOs for delivery of Afghanistan's Basic Package of Health Services (BPHS) in clinics and health facilities in rural and underserved areas of 14 Afghan provinces.

» Escalating the Battle Against TB
   Kabul, October 12, 2005
In partnership with the Ministry of Public Health (MOPH), the REACH Program is battling an age-old disease that still kills one person on Earth every 15 seconds: tuberculosis.

» Strength in Numbers—Afghanistan's National Health Management Information
   System
   Kabul, September 2005
Accurate and carefully analyzed data is a valuable tool in meeting the health needs of the men, women, and children whose lives the numbers represent. Even as war and factional fighting raged in Afghanistan, operational health facilities did their best to supply the country's Ministry of Public Health with basic information.

» Human Resources Testing and Certification in Afghanistan to Ensure a Job
   Well Done
   Kabul, September 2005
Management Sciences for Health, which operates the USAID-funded REACH Program, is helping Afghanistan's Ministry Of Public Health develop a system to measure people against standards of competency and identify the truly qualified in a pool of an estimated 20,000 potential health workers of such varied backgrounds, training levels, and experience.

» Delivering Mental Health, Disability, and Community Health Services
   in Afghanistan
   Kabul, August 2005
Throughout Afghanistan, health providers are poised to begin delivering services to the mentally ill and the disabled as three new components-community health, mental health, and disability-are fully introduced into Afghanistan's Basic Package of Health Services (BPHS).

» Transforming Afghan Community Health and Women's Lives
   Kabul, July 2005
Guljan, Karima, and Parwin are Kabul residents who have recently begun the second phase of a three-phase Afghan Community Health Worker (CHW) training program. Though only three of the 4,414 CHWs being trained and supported by USAID through REACH NGO grantees, they are prime examples of the dedication Afghan women display toward the community health worker model of health service delivery.

» Pre-Service Training Underway for Afghanistan's Latest Medical Graduates
   Kabul, July 1, 2005
Their diplomas newly framed, some 206 spring graduates of the Faculty of Medicine at Kabul University are receiving two months of intensive training in public health, community-based health care, and clinical standards before taking up their posts at health facilities in the provinces of Afghanistan.

» Town Meeting in Takhar Province: Local Officials Support NGO Security
   in Afghanistan

» Learning for Life at Work in the Classroom

» The Afghan Midwives Association: A Traditional Calling on a New Path

» Care for Afghan Families: A REACH Grantee with a Vision

» Broadcasting for Better Health in Afghanistan

» Serving Millions with Critical Medicine Delivery

» Afghanistan: Trading Despair for Hope

» An Afghan Heroine

» An Afghan Nurse Midwife

» One Woman's Perspective: Health in Afghanistan