Geneva: The number of reported cholera cases is increasing in Darfur, and more than 3,000 people across all of Sudan have died from the illness over the last 14 months of civil war, the UN health agency said on Tuesday.
The current outbreak of the bacterial infection caused by contaminated food or water has spread to all 18 states in the war-torn country after erupting in Kassala state in July last year, the World Health Organisation said.
Hala Khudari, its deputy representative in Sudan, said WHO has launched a vaccination campaign targeting 406,000 people in North Darfur State that comes “as cholera cases in Darfur continue to rise at an alarming rate – at an alarming fatality rate, to be specific.” As of Sunday, some 12,739 cases and 358 deaths have been reported in more than half of Darfur’s localities, she said. The outbreak reached Darfur state in western Sudan in May. “Reported cases in Darfur continue to increase amid severe access constraints that are impeding the required scale of response,” Khudari told reporters in Geneva by video from Port Sudan.
The conflict between the Sudanese military and the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group erupted in April 2023 in Khartoum.