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Ezzatullah Mehrdad

As the world awakened earlier this month to the full severity of the coronavirus public health emergency, governments across the globe rushed to evacuate their citizens from Wuhan – the Chinese city at the epicentre of the outbreak.
India, Bangladesh, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Iran were among the countries taking part, but neighbouring Afghanistan was conspicuous by its absence from the evacuation effort.
When 45 Afghan students stranded in Wuhan asked to be repatriated, the initial response of Ferozuddin Feroz, the public health minister, was positive.
He did caution that such an evacuation could “endanger the lives of 35 million Afghans”, but nevertheless indicated his ministry’s readiness to help.

The evacuation flight, however, failed to materialise.
Some would have been unwilling to leave even if it had. Political economy student Mujtaba Nasiri, who is based in Wuhan, said he would not have risked taking the virus back to his home country “even if Afghanistan had chartered a flight”.
Other Afghan students appeared in a video dedicated to the doctors and nurses on the front line of the battle against the virus, as shared by Asif Mohammadi, of Kunming University in Yunnan province, on Facebook.


Kabul’s failure to repatriate its citizens has sparked anger in Afghanistan – though it probably has less to do with their unwillingness to leave than it does the country’s inability to handle a virus outbreak. With one of the worst health care systems in the world, to which many Afghans have little or no access, Afghanistan has also seen its health infrastructure devastated by years of war and rates of preventable diseases such as respiratory infections are on the rise.
A coronavirus outbreak “would definitely overburden the current health system” in Afghanistan, which “lacks quarantine facilities and protocols, trained health care personnel and medical supplies”, said Mohammad Azeem Zmarial Kakar of Kandahar University’s Faculty of Medicine and former acting public health director of Kandahar province, Dr Zmarial Kakar, in an article for online news magazine The Diplomat earlier this month.

And even if the country’s health care system wasn’t an issue, online xenophobia and misunderstanding surrounding the virus would be.
One social media post that has been shared widely in Afghanistan links the Covid-19 virus to Chinese food, while another cracks wise about it being far more long-lasting than other “low quality … Chinese-made products”.
Afghan Facebook users also shared posts calling for China to “be isolated completely” until the Chinese “change their lifestyle” and “eat things which are normal”.
The abundance of such posts led Salman Raha, an Afghan who lives in China, to pen an opinion piece for the Hasht e Subh newspaper under the headline “fight coronavirus, not China” calling for the racism to stop. That same newspaper earlier published a satirical article suggesting the Taliban spread coronavirus in China to stop its roll-out of G5 technology.
‘Made in China’: how coronavirus spread anti-Chinese racism like a disease
Bad-taste coronavirus humour has even made its way on to Afghanistan’s airwaves, with one local television channel airing a sketch featuring a medical team accosting a man at a port of entry and demanding to know if he has “corona” – a shortened version of the virus’ full name. The man replies that he does, thinking he was asked if he has “Corolla” – a model of car made by Japanese automotive giant Toyota.
That sketch was seemingly made in response to a decision by Afghanistan’s Public Health Ministry earlier this month – after the World Health Organisation had declared the outbreak a “public health emergency of international concern” – to send medical teams to screen inbound passengers from China, 500 of whom tested negative for the virus after having blood samples sent abroad for testing, as the country lacked the facilities to do so at the time.
Testing kits have since been installed at major ports of entry and no Afghan has yet tested positive for Covid-19, according to the health ministry. Whether anything can be done to fight the xenophobia exhibited online and on the airwaves, however, remains to be seen.


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Afghanistan

Coronavirus comedy: do bad-taste jokes disguise Afghanistan’s outbreak anxiety?

A health worker wearing protective gear checks a passenger’s temperature at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul earlier this month. Photo: AFP

In this photo taken on August 8, 2018, Afghan women are assisted during labour at the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) maternity hospital in Khost. - Women often arrive in extremis at the Doctors Without Borders maternity hospital in southeastern Afghanistan, one of the most active in the world, with more than 60 babies born daily. The early hours of the morning are the most feverish for the hospital -- affectionately known by the NGO as "the baby factory" -- just a stone's throw from the tribal areas in Pakistan's Khost province. (Photo by ANNE CHAON / AFP) / To go with AFGHANISTAN-HEALTH-MATERNITY-SOCIAL,FEATURE by Anne CHAON

Health services staff members wearing protectice gear interact with passengers to check their body temperature at the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul on February 2, 2020. - Afghan health authorities are establishing isolation wards across the country ahead of a potential influx of coronavirus cases, an official said on February 2, as governments worldwide monitor the disease's spread. (Photo by WAKIL KOHSAR / AFP)

‘Made in China’: how Wuhan coronavirus spread anti-Chinese racism like a disease through Asia

A video by Chinese social media influencer Wang Mengyun, in which she tries bat soup, has been held up by some as evidence of ‘disgusting’ Chinese eating habits – even though the video was shot in Palau. Photo: Sohu

A security is pictured outside the Wuhan Huanan Seafood Whole Sale Market in Wuhan city, central China's Hubei province, on Jan. 04, 2020. Unexplained pneumonia cases out broke from the the market in the city since the end of 2019, and up to Friday, Jan. 3, 44 patients were received and 11 in critical condition. 04JAN20 SCMP/Simon Song

Passengers arriving from Guangzhou, China, at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Manila. The Philippines has stopped issuing visas on arrival to all Chinese nationals. Photo: EPA

Singapore National Development Minister Lawrence Wong(L) meets Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor on May 15th 2019.

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A portrait of Chinese President Xi Jinping on a street in Shanghai. Photo: Reuters

(200215) -- BEIJING, Feb. 15, 2020 (Xinhua) -- A staff member works in a laboratory in Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province, Feb. 13, 2020. As a designated service provider of nucleic acid detection of the novel coronavirus, KingMed Diagnostics laboratory in Wuhan conducts non-stop detection service over 2,000 samples from various cities in Hubei Province every day. (Xinhua/Cheng Min)

A woman wearing a face mask walks in the Biblioteka Imeni Lenina metro station in Moscow on February 7, 2020. - So far Russia has had two confirmed cases of the coronavirus, both Chinese citizens who have been hospitalised in Siberia. Russia and China share a border of more than 4,000 kilometres (2,500 miles) long, but Moscow has suspended rail links and restricted flights as well as halting visa-free entry for Chinese tour groups. (Photo by Dimitar DILKOFF / AFP)

(200218) -- WUHAN, Feb. 18, 2020 (Xinhua) -- Mr. Wang, 36, a recovered coronavirus patient, "hugs" medical staff without body contact before leaving Leishenshan (Thunder God Mountain) Hospital in Wuhan, capital of central China's Hubei Province, Feb. 18, 2020. Leishenshan Hospital, a makeshift hospital built in Wuhan amid the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), Tuesday saw its first two cured patients, including Wang and an 83-year-old woman patient. (Photo by Gao Xiang/Xinhua)

In this Monday, Feb. 17, 2020, photo released by Xinhua News Agency, patients infected with the coronavirus take rest at a temporary hospital converted from Wuhan Sports Center in Wuhan in central China's Hubei Province. China reported thousands new virus cases and more deaths in its update Tuesday on a disease outbreak that has caused milder illness in most people, an assessment that promoted guarded optimism from global health authorities. (Xiao Yijiu/Xinhua via AP)

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Online shows of solidarity with Chinese doctors are at odds with some of the racist comments doing the rounds on social media and TV
The country has yet to register a single confirmed case of the virus, however – and would likely struggle to contain its spread if it did



The war-battered country has yet to register a single confirmed case of the Covid-19 virus, and would likely struggle to contain its spread if it did.


Coronavirus pandemic

Coronavirus pandemic: All stories

Racism and other prejudice

Disease

Coronavirus comedy: do bad-taste jokes disguise Afghanistan’s outbreak anxiety?

Online shows of solidarity with Chinese doctors are at odds with some of the racist comments doing the rounds on social media and TV The country has yet to register a single confirmed case of the virus, however – and would likely struggle to contain its spread if it did

Online shows of solidarity with Chinese doctors are at odds with some of the racist comments doing the rounds on social media and TV

The country has yet to register a single confirmed case of the virus, however – and would likely struggle to contain its spread if it did