Sudan’s Health Minister Says Medics Struggling to Contain Cholera Outbreak
(AWP) - Displaced Sudanese citizen Mahjoub Saleh is struggling to cope with the symptoms of cholera, which he contracted a few days after arriving in Port Sudan from Khartoum, where battles are raging between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
The disease has caused significant health implications for Saleh’s frail body. He explained, “I came from Khartoum and live here in al-Janain district with my relatives. Yesterday evening I experienced diarrhea and vomiting. I was taken to a hospital and then transferred here where I received good treatment.”
Doctors at isolation centres in Port Sudan said they have been receiving increasing numbers of cholera cases for weeks, and that many cases were arriving in the late stages of the infection, making treatment more difficult.
Ibrahim Bakash, the director of the epidemic isolation centre in Port Sudan, said, “Most of the cases reach us at the late and critical stages. Thanks to the interventions by the health support teams, and directives by the health emergency room to intervene at the community level, the cases began to arrive in the earlier stages of the disease because of people’s awareness of the seriousness of this epidemic.”
The Sudanese health ministry reported that cholera has spread to 10 states nationwide with over 9,500 cases, including 264 deaths.
However, the ministry confirms that the infection rate significantly declined due to the efforts to clean the environment and eliminate disease-carrying insects in addition to vaccination campaigns in several states.
Sudanese Health Minister Haitham Ibrahim Mohamed said several cases were detected in some states as a result of the recent population displacement from Khartoum, followed by another wave of displacement from Wad Madani.
He said, “The health teams are currently active in the Northern and River Nile states. Operations to contain the epidemic in the limited hotspots have already begun, and the disease will be controlled soon.”
According to the Sudanese health ministry and the World Health Organization (WHO), the states registering the highest suspected cholera infections are the Red Sea, Gedaref, Al Jazirah and the White Nile.
Suspected cases were also recorded in Khartoum, South Kordofan, Sennar and Kassala.
The infighting since April 2023 has severely damaged the country’s health sector, leading to the rapid spread of epidemic diseases such as cholera, malaria, measles and dengue fever, resulting in hundreds of deaths.