Dozens of people have died and hundreds more are hospitalized during a cholera outbreak in war-torn Sudan, the country’s health ministry said on Sunday.
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 did not give a time frame for the deaths or the number since the beginning of the year. However, the World Health Organization said 78 deaths were recorded from cholera this year in Sudan on July 28.
The disease also infected more than 2,400 others between January 1 and July 28, it added.
Cholera is a rapidly developing, highly contagious infection that causes diarrhea, leading to severe dehydration and possible death within hours when left untreated, according to the WHO. It is transmitted through ingestion of contaminated food or water.
The cholera outbreak is the latest calamity for Sudan, which was plunged into chaos last April 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 battlegrounds, destroying civilian infrastructure and an already battered healthcare system. Without the basics, many hospitals and healthcare facilities have closed their doors.
It has killed thousands of people and driven many to starvation, with famine already confirmed in a sprawling camp for displaced people in the ravaged 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 the fighting began, according to the International Organization for Migration. Over 2 million of them 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 washed away in 12 of Sudan’s 18 provinces, according to local authorities. About 118,000 people have been displaced by 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 Jasarevic, a WHO spokesman, said the outbreak began in the eastern province of Kassala before spreading to nine localities in five other provinces.
He said in comments to The Associated Press that the data showed that most of the detected cases were not vaccinated. He said WHO is now working with the Sudanese health authorities and partners to implement a vaccination campaign.
Sudan’s military-controlled Sovereign Council, meanwhile, said on Sunday it will send a government delegation to meet US officials in Cairo amid mounting US pressure on the military to join ongoing peace talks in Switzerland aimed at finding a way out of the conflict.
The council said in a statement that the meeting in Cairo will focus on the implementation of an agreement between the military and the Rapid Support Forces, which called for the paramilitary group to withdraw from people’s homes in Khartoum and elsewhere in the country.
The talks began on August 14 in Switzerland with diplomats from the United States, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, the African Union and the United Nations participating. A delegation from RSF was in Geneva but did not join the meetings.
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