Cholera & dengue outbreaks reported in eastern Sudan

Cairo: Outbreaks of cholera and dengue fever have been reported in eastern Sudan, where thousands of people are sheltering as deadly fighting grinds on between the country’s military and a rival paramilitary force, the UN health agency said on Tuesday.

According to the World Health Organisation, there have been 162 suspected cholera cases admitted to hospitals in the province of Qadarif and other areas along the border with Ethiopia. Eighty cases have been confirmed and 10 people have died of cholera, a bacterial infection linked to contaminated food or water, WHO said.

Sudan was engulfed in chaos in mid-April, when simmering tensions between the military and a powerful paramilitary group exploded into open warfare in the capital of Khartoum and other areas across the east African nation.

The medical charity Doctors Without Borders has set up two centres to treat cholera patients along with two mobile teams in Qadarif. The UN health and refugee agencies have renovated the isolation centre for cholera at the Qadarif Teaching Hospital, the province’s main medical facility.

Cholera outbreaks are not uncommon in impoverished Sudan.