Abstract

There is a rising concern for the rapid increase of COVID-19 confirmed cases in Kandahar province. From zero reported cases until 17th March 2020, then Kandahar saw a sudden rise in the cases by 16th May 2020. Decreased literacy rates, poor health education, lack of facilities, inconsistent government policies, and defying coronavirus safety advisory by the public have resulted in the rapid spread of COVID-19. The awareness and practices of the people towards the COVID-19 were significantly low. Therefore, the risk of coronavirus in Kandahar province is extremely high due to the aforementioned reasons. To overcome this virus, the local government must declare strict measures and provide the public with information about the severity and prevention mechanisms of this fatal disease. Mass and random diagnostic testing are required to track the actual infection rates, which can give a realistic picture of what is occurring. In this article, the current situation of COVID-19, available medical facilities, and public response to the ongoing pandemic in Kandahar, Afghanistan was highlighted.   Key words: COVID-19, Kandahar province, public response, curfew, random testing.

Highlights

  • Coronaviruses are a large group of single-stranded, nonsegmented, positive-sense RNA viruses belonging to the family Coronaviridae (Cui et al, 2019; Wege and Ter Meulen, 1982)

  • The initial data regarding COVID-19 cases in Kandahar province was obtained from the database of the office of National Disease Surveillance and Response (NDSR), Directorate of Public Health (DoPH), Kandahar Province, Afghanistan

  • The first positive COVID-19 case was reported in Kandahar province on 17 March 2020, when a doctor tested positive upon returning from Pakistan, which shares a border with Kandahar

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Summary

Introduction

Coronaviruses are a large group of single-stranded, nonsegmented, positive-sense RNA viruses belonging to the family Coronaviridae (Cui et al, 2019; Wege and Ter Meulen, 1982). Members of this family cause respiratory and gastrointestinal infections in humans and animals (Perlman, 1998). In the past two decades, two wellknown pathogenic strains of coronaviruses, e.g. SARSCoV and MERS-CoV, have emerged in humans (Kuiken et al, 2003; Zaki et al, 2012). The newly appeared novel type coronavirus (2019-nCoV or SARS-COV-2), is the third infectious strain of the coronaviruses (Zhu et al, 2020) (Figure 1).

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