#US Embassy in Afghanistan fighting coronavirus outbreak

Enlarge Image

The American embassy in Kabul in 2013.
Ahmad Nazar/AP

As if life wasn’t hard enough in Afghanistan — the American embassy in Kabul is now battling a COVID-19 outbreak.

Infected staffers include diplomats, contractors and locals according to the Associated Press, which noted “an official at the embassy in Kabul, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media, said up to 20 people were infected, the majority of them Nepalese Gurkhas, who provide embassy security.”

“The embassy is implementing all appropriate measures to mitigate the spread of COVID-19,” the State Department said in a statement late Friday.

Testing for everyone on the compound is now being done as well as sanitization, while infected staffers are being held in isolation.

Afghanistan has 28,424 confirmed coronavirus cases but experts fear the rate is much higher due to lack of testing availability.