Sources said on Monday that Abdul Hakim Himmat, a senior Taliban official at the Public Health Ministry, had been dismissed from his post after a report by Amu TV on a corruption case involving him.
Himmat, who headed the mass immunization department at the Taliban-run Ministry of Public Health, was removed from his position days after allegations about financial misconduct and irregularities in a national measles vaccination campaign, the sources said.
The dismissal follows a report by Amu TV that Himmat had been reappointed to the role despite previously being removed over corruption allegations. According to those accounts, he had earlier been dismissed by a former Taliban health minister but later returned to the ministry after a change in leadership, in what sources described as a move that violated internal administrative rules.
Himmat, who had also served as an adviser to the Taliban health minister, had been barred from working at the ministry for two years because of earlier corruption accusations, according to the same sources.
The allegations center on the handling of a nationwide measles vaccination campaign, where Himmat is accused of misappropriating hundreds of thousands of dollars. One source said the alleged financial misconduct may have undermined a $30 million program supported by the World Health Organization aimed at combating measles in Afghanistan.
Additional claims point to irregularities in the transportation of vaccines. Sources said that, under Himmat’s direction, vaccines were transported in non-standard vehicles, including small passenger vans, while official records indicated that proper transportation costs had been incurred.
The controversy comes as Afghanistan faces a surge in measles cases. According to available data, around 200 children have died from the disease nationwide. More than 9,300 cases were reported in 2024, with an additional 8,500 cases recorded by August 2025.
Despite those figures, Taliban health authorities have maintained that efforts to control and eliminate the disease are underway.
The Ministry of Public Health has not responded to requests for comment on Himmat’s dismissal.
Following reports by Amu TV on corruption cases in the Taliban-run Public Health Ministry, a spokesman for the ministry acknowledged, indirectly, that some individuals had been detained in connection with corruption investigations. Sources have also reported that Taliban intelligence conducted raids on the home and office of the Taliban health minister in Kabul, detaining several officials on suspicion of administrative corruption.
