Afghan consumer blog: hundreds burned or killed by unsafe gas-powered cookers

Ahmad Masoud, founder and director of CI member Consumers Rights and Services Organization, documents the state of consumer rights in Afghanistan via his monthly blog. In this latest instalment, he reveals the high cost of unsafe cookers and contaminated fuels.

Blasts caused by low quality gas cylinders, pressure cookers and contaminated fuels are causing burns to thousands of people in Afghanistan every year.

Sources in the Ministry of Public Health say that out of 24,000 burn cases reported last year, 234 people succumbed to their wounds. According to the figures, the majority of the victims are children younger than 14 and women.

Thousands of people use gas cylinders for cooking, lighting and heating purposes as the majority of people in Afghanistan do not have access to electricity.

Afghanistan imports gas cylinders from neighbouring countries and there are various brands of imported and domestically-made pressure cookers available in markets.

Most people cannot afford to buy high-quality pressure cookers or gas cylinders; therefore, they go for the cheaper ones. There have been reports that petrol mixed with diesel has been sold as kerosene which is widely used in kerosene lamp and stoves. It is often the cause of fire.

Early this year, fourteen members of a family suffered severe burns when a gas cylinder exploded inside their
house in the northern part of Kabul City.

Ahmad Farhad, the father of the family, told reporters, “The lives of thousands of people are in danger due to inattention of government and relevant government departments. Lack of control of poor quality gas cylinders and import of low quality fuels has led to such incidents.

"The quality of the imported fuels and gas cylinders, which are imported from the neighbouring countries, should be controlled.”

As the winter is fast approaching and the demand for gas cylinders and fuels is increasing, experts believe that the number of burn cases will rise.

This is of major concern as most people in Afghanistan do not have access to proper medical facilities; therefore, great numbers of people will continue to succumb to their burn wounds.

Afghanistan does not have a proper system to register burn cases in the country; therefore, it is believed that the number of actual cases is much higher than what is being reported.

There is a need for a survey to find out more details about the number of people, especially children and women, who fall victim to gas cylinder and pressure cooker blasts and contaminated fuels each year and the social and economic impact of such incidents and the post-incident lives of the victims.

There is also a profound need for testing the quality of available gas cylinders, pressure cookers and fuels and encouraging the government authorities to ban their import and ask people to stop buying them.

On several occasions, government authorities have promised to control the quality of imported products, but so far they have failed to keep their word.

This failure along with the lack of consumer awareness about health complications due to poor quality commodities is worrying.

Consumers Rights and Services Organization (CRSO), along with a number of public health experts, is calling on the government of Afghanistan to test certain commodities and issue approval certificates to the importers.

CRSO urges the government of Afghanistan to implement strict quality control measures to ensure the safety of its citizens.

More from the Afghan Consumer Diary:

• A country in dire need of consumer protection 

A country in dire need of consumer rights protection

Ahmad Masoud from CI member Consumers Rights and Services Organization calls for urgent consumer protection policy and fair competition in Afghanistan. 

Consumer rights protection and fair trade competition are among the most forgotten issues in Afghanistan.

The majority of consumers in the country are not satisfied with the quality of many products, including medicines, food products, washing powders and liquids, edible oils and ghee, and diesels and patrols.

“Afghanistan has been changed into a dumping center for some of the poorest quality Chinese, Pakistani and Indian goods and products,” says Mohammad Abrar, a capacity building specialist with the World Bank in Afghanistan.

Afghan citizens fall victim to deceptive trade practices and adulterated commodities on a regular basis. And they have little access to redress. Cartels are another problem, often resulting in collusive pricing, division of markets and joint decisions to hold and reduce supply.

Creating a pro-consumer environment

Afghanistan needs to enact consumer rights protection legislation as quickly as possible to help create a pro-consumer environment where the delivery of goods and services leads to consumer satisfaction.

It is generally believed that successful implementation of consumer protection policy and fair competition promotes good governance and strengthens democracy.   

“Business plays a vitally important role in the economic growth of a country by creating more job opportunities, taking the country towards self reliance and alleviating poverty, but the success of a business depends on the consumer’s trust in the quality and safety of the domestic products,” says Abrar.

“Therefore, the domestic products should be of high quality to attract the interest and build the trust of consumers, and the government should enact certain standards for the quality assurance of not only the domestic but also the imported products.” 

Help is on the way

The Afghani government has recently established the Competition Promotion and Consumer Protection General Directorate within the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. 

The directorate has drafted consumer protection legislation and sent it to the Ministry of Justice for revision. After revision by the Justice Ministry, the legislation will be sent to the parliament for ratification.

Jawidullah Azizi, an optical technician in Kabul, says that both businesspeople and consumers need to know their rights and responsibilities in order to create a healthy business environment in the country.

The Consumers Rights and Services Organization (CRSO) has tried to do just that by publishing a series of documents in one of the national Afghan languages on consumers’ rights and responsibilities.

The documents include a booklet on the rights and responsibilities of the consumers; a leaflet on lead poisoning, its causes and preventions; and a flyer marked with eight internationally recognised consumer rights messages. This is the first time such documents have been available in Afghanistan.

Sitting at his small optic shop in one of the busiest parts of Kabul city, Azizi gazes out of his shop’s window and says, “When I look at the current status of some businesses in the market, I strongly believe that Afghanistan is in dire need of consumers’ rights protection.”

Unregulated pharmacies prompt health fears in Afghan province

According to Ajmal Wesal from the Institute for War and Peace Reporting authorities have little control over chemists’ shops in Uruzgan, undermining faith in the health sector. 

Khair Mohammad may not be a qualified doctor, but he offers a wide range of treatments to whoever will pay. On a blanket laid out beside a road in Afghanistan’s Uruzgan province, the self-appointed pharmacist sells cures for everything from acne and depression to liver complaints.

Many of Mohammad’s customers in the provincial capital of Tarin Kowt are poor or illiterate. They do not have prescriptions from a doctor, and Mohammad, who cannot read or write, does not ask for them.

"We bring these medicines from Kandahar to Tarin Kowt," he said. "The good thing is that no one demands money from us for selling them, or from selling them from this spot."

Mohammad’s pills enable him to make a living in a particularly isolated and impoverished province in central Afghanistan, where drugs and health professionals are often in short supply. (See Healthcare Crisis in Central Afghan District.)

But he is part of a largely unregulated pharmaceutical trade which some people fear is carries high risks. Sources in Uruzgan say anyone can sell medication, regardless of their level of medical training, or whether the drugs have expired.

Afghanistan imports medicines from countries including Iran, China, Pakistan and India. Regulation is slack, the country’s borders are notoriously porous, and some import companies are unlicensed. This creates ideal conditions for counterfeit or low-quality drugs to enter the market.

Enforcement

Dr Sayed Agha Miakhel, head of Uruzgan’s provincial public health department, said there was little he could do to rein in the free-wheeling pharmaceutical trade.

His officials inspect the town’s 52 formal pharmacies every six months looking for low-quality or expired medication, but when it comes to enforcement they have few options.

In 2009, Miakhel’s department closed down four pharmacies for operating without licences, but they quickly reopened thanks to support from influential local figures.

"I could not take on these four [pharmacists] because they are all backed by local commanders, lawmakers and senators," he said. "For this reason, controlling pharmacies and medical check-up centres in this city is pointless."

Alongside the pharmacies, some 20 to 30 street vendors like Mohammad sell medication around Tarin Kowt.

The lack of regulation has undermined public confidence in the health sector. Residents of Chura, Dehrawud, Charchino and Chanartu districts, as well as Tarin Kowt, say they know of people killed by low-quality or expired medicines.

They include Qasem, a 33-year-old who repairs radios at an electrical store in Tarin Kowt, who lost his baby daughter Samina in December 2011.

Cause of death

The causes of Samina’s death are unclear. The infant appeared to be feeling faint, which her relatives believe may have been caused by a coal or gas heater. After they took her to the provincial hospital she was given an injection. According to Qasem, her condition then declined rapidly.

"As soon as the doctor injected her, I noticed that she became increasingly faint hour by hour, so that her eyes were closing," he recalled.

It is unclear what the syringe contained, but Samina’s relatives claim that one doctor subsequently looked at the packaging, hit his forehead and exclaimed that the medication had expired.

Samina’s family also said that she was prescribed drugs for malaria and typhoid worth about four US dollars, but alleged that when they collected them from the pharmacy, they too had expired.

"While I was planning to take Samina to another doctor the next day, she stopped breathing and died," Qasem said.

Qasem raised his daughter’s death with the pharmacist who sold the medicines, who denied any responsibility. 

At the provincial hospital, doctors denied injecting drugs that had passed their expiry date, and said Samina could have died from complications relating to malaria.

Public health

Whatever caused the child’s death, officials acknowledge that public health in Uruzgan leaves much to be desired.

In the absence of state support, much of the health work in the province is conducted by the non-governmental group Afghan Health and Development Services, Miakhel said.

"The truth is that public health ministry has forgotten Uruzgan because it is a mountainous, underdeveloped province," he said. “They have not supported it. Without money, people can do nothing."

The health and sanitation problems even appear to have reached the provincial public health department.

In a room opposite Miakhel’s office, which apparently belonged to another senior colleague, the table tops were thick with dust, while dirty plates could be seen on a table in the corner.

A visiting reporter had to cover his nose due to the overwhelmingly pungent smell that wafted from the room into the corridor.

This story has been reprinted here with permission from the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) and the author, Ajmal Wesal, an IWPR-trained journalist in Uruzgan province, Afghanistan.