Cairo (AP) – A fast-moving cholera epidemic hit Sudan, killing 172 people and more than 2,500 people have become ill in the past week.
The disease centered around Khartoum has spread many Sudanese who fled the country’s war, returning to their homes in the capital and its twin city of Omdurman. There, they usually only find unclean water – dangerous channels for cholera – because in combat, many health and sanitation infrastructures collapsed.
This is the latest disaster for African countries, where a 2-year-old civil war has caused one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
Here is the new outbreak of knowledge:
What is the latest development?
According to the Ministry of Health, the latest outbreak killed 172 people and more than 2,500 people were sick in the past week.
UNICEF said Wednesday that the number of reported cases increased from 90 per day to 815 per day from May 15 to 25. It said more than 7,700 people have been diagnosed with cholera since the beginning of the year, including more than 1,000 children under the age of 4.
The ministry said most cases were reported in Khartoum and Omdman, but cholera was also found in five provinces.
Joyce Bakker, Sudan’s Sudan coordinator for MSF, said the organization was overwhelmed by patients at the treatment center in Omdurman.
“The scene is disturbing,” Buck said. “Many patients arrived too late to save…we didn’t know the true scale of the outbreak, and our team could only see a small part of the full picture.”
What drove the outbreak?
Khartoum and Omdurman were the battlefields of the entire civil war, almost emptying them. The capital region was quickly supported by the RSF captives from its competitors in late March.
Since then, about 34,000 people have returned. But the city was destroyed by months of fighting. Many people find their homes damaged. UNICEF said it was difficult to find clean water, partly because attacks on power plants destroyed electricity and exacerbated water shortages. The health system is damaged.
“People have been drinking contaminated water and transferring it to unsanitary containers,” said Dr. Rania Elsayegh, a human rights doctor in Sudan.
Health workers fear the outbreak will spread rapidly, as many people are loaded into displacement centers, making it difficult to isolate infected people. The health system has also been broken down. Dr. Sayed Mohamed Abdullah of the Sudanese Doctors League said that more than 80% of hospitals do not have access to water, electricity and medicine.
What is cholera?
The World Health Organization describes cholera as a “poverty disease” because it spreads in places with poor sanitation and lack of clean water.
This is a diarrhea disease when people eat food or food or water contaminated by bacteria cholera. It can be easily treated with rehydration solutions and antibiotics. Most people with infection have only mild symptoms, but in severe cases, if not treated, the disease may be killed within a few hours.
WHO’s global reserves of oral cholera vaccines have fallen below its minimum threshold of 5 million doses, making it increasingly difficult to stop the outbreak. Meanwhile, the cholera epidemic has been rising around the world due to poverty, conflict and extreme climate events such as floods and cyclones, the UN said.
Why did this happen in Sudan?
Civil war has been undermined since the outbreak in April 2023, when tensions between the military and the RSF exploded nationwide.
At least 24,000 people were reportedly killed, although the number may be much higher. More than 14 million people were displaced and forced from their homes, including more than 4 million people, into neighboring countries.
The famine was declared at least five locations in the heart of the destruction of Darfur region.
Fighting is marked by violent acts, including mass rape and racially motivated killings, with the United Nations and international rights groups saying it constitutes war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The devastating seasonal flooding complicated the pain in Sudan. Every year, dozens of people are killed and critical infrastructure is washed away.
Have cholera erupted in the past?
Cholera is not uncommon in Sudan. In 2017, at least 700 people died in less than two months and about 22,000 were sick.
But the destruction of the war led to repeated outbreaks.
According to health authorities, cholera is distributed in 11 of the country’s 18 provinces in September and October, killing more than 20,000 people and killing at least 626 people.
In the two weeks of February and March, another outbreak infected more than 2,600 people and 90 died, most in the White Nile province, according to doctors without borders.
Other diseases have spread. The Ministry of Health said on Tuesday that the mosquito-transmitting dengue outbreak has ill about 12,900 people and killed at least 20 people. At the same time, at least 12 people died of meningitis, a highly contagious, severe aerial virus disease, it said.
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Fatma Khales, an AP correspondent in Cairo, contributed to the report.
