Nov 9, 2021
From the first Taliban government exit in 2001 to 2015, Afghanistan went from having some of the worst indicators for health in the world to dramatic improvements in maternal mortality and childhood malnutrition. But when the Taliban stepped back into power in August of this year, thousands of health clinics were shuttered almost overnight and outcomes for women and children already look much worse. Afghanistan-born Dr. Nadia Akseer, a Johns Hopkins scientist in International Health, talks with Stephanie Desmon about the country’s post-Taliban health system, and why the international community will need to wait and see what might happen under this “new Taliban” coming to power 20 years later.