Since the beginning of 2024, more than 12,000 tuberculosis patients have been registered in Afghanistan, showing a 6% increase compared to last year.

Khan Mohammad Mangal, head of the National Tuberculosis Control Program, said: "The increase does not mean that the cases have increased; we have used the GeneXpert machine (tuberculosis diagnostic device) extensively."

Mohammad Jawad, a seventy-year-old man who has contracted tuberculosis and is hospitalized at the Afghan-Japan hospital, told TOLOnews: "My chest becomes very tight, even when I drink a glass of water, I feel like my chest is going to burst."

"My son took me to a private hospital, they examined me and said it was tuberculosis and sent me here. Here, my tests showed tuberculosis and the doctors told me to be hospitalized," said Sakina, another tuberculosis patient.