CAIRO, Egypt
Sudan has been stricken by a cholera outbreak that has killed nearly two dozen people and sickened hundreds more in recent weeks, health authorities said Sunday.
The African nation has been
roiled by a 16-month conflict and devastating floods.
Health Minister Haitham
Mohamed Ibrahim said in a statement that at least 22 people have died from the
disease, and that at least 354 confirmed cases of cholera have been detected
across the county.
Ibrahim didn’t give a time
frame for the deaths or the tally since the start of the year. The World Health
Organization, however, said that 78 deaths were recorded from cholera this year
in Sudan as of July 28. The disease also sickened more than 2,400 others
between Jan. 1 and July 28, it said.
Cholera is a fast-developing,
highly contagious infection that causes diarrhea, leading to severe dehydration
and possible death within hours when not treated, according to WHO. It is
transmitted through the ingestion of contaminated food or water.
The cholera outbreak is the
latest calamity for Sudan, which was plunged into chaos in April last year when
simmering tensions between the military and a powerful paramilitary group
exploded into open warfare across the country.
The conflict has turned the
capital, Khartoum and other urban areas into battlefields, wrecking civilian
infrastructure and an already battered health care system. Without the basics,
many hospitals and medical facilities have closed their doors.
It has killed thousands of people and pushed many into starvation, with famine already confirmed in a sprawling camp for displaced people in the wrecked northern region of Darfur.
Sudan’s conflict has created
the world’s largest displacement crisis. More than 10.7 million people have
been forced to flee their homes since fighting began, according to the
International Organization for Migration. Over 2 million of those fled to neighboring
countries.
The fighting has been marked
by atrocities including mass rape and ethnically motivated killings that amount
to war crimes and crimes against humanity, according to the UN and
international rights groups.
Devastating seasonal floods in
recent weeks have compounded the misery.
Dozens of people have been
killed and critical infrastructure has been washed away in 12 of Sudan’s 18
provinces, according to local authorities. About 118,000 people have been
displaced due to the floods, according to the UN migration agency.
Cholera is not uncommon in
Sudan. A previous major outbreak left at least 700 dead and sickened about
22,000 in less than two months in 2017.
Tarik Jašarević, a spokesman
for WHO, said the outbreak began in the eastern province of Kassala before
spreading to nine localities in five provinces.
He said in comments to The
Associated Press that data showed that most of the detected cases were not
vaccinated. He said the WHO is now working with the Sudanese health authorities
and partners to implement a vaccination campaign.
Sudan’s military-controlled
sovereign council, meanwhile, said Sunday it will send a government delegation
to meet with American officials in Cairo amid mounting US pressure on the
military to join ongoing peace talks in Switzerland that aim at finding a way
out of the conflict.
The council said in a
statement the Cairo meeting will focus on the implementation of a deal between
the military and the Rapid Support Forces, which required the paramilitary
group to pull out from people’s homes in Khartoum and elsewhere in the country.
The talks began Aug. 14 in
Switzerland with diplomats from the US, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab
Emirates, the African Union and the United Nations attending. A delegation from
the RSF was in Geneva but didn’t join the meetings.
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