Radio Progress News first radio station in the Upper West Region
At least 22 people have died from cholera in Sudan after heavy rainfall contaminated drinking water, the health minister said.
A woman searches through water near her flood-damaged home near the city of Abu Hamdan in Northern Sudan on August 7, 2024 [File: Samira
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More than 350 cases of cholera have been recorded in a new outbreak in Sudan in just a few weeks.
The difficulties in reaching and registering victims amid the continuing humanitarian crisis caused by the country’s civil war have led experts to speculate that many more people than this may have been infected, however.
Health Minister Haitham Mohamed Ibrahim said at least 22 people have died from the disease and declared a cholera epidemic after several weeks of heavy rain, which has contaminated drinking water.
The cholera epidemic is just the latest crisis for Sudan, where fighting between the army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group, has been spreading around the country since April 2023.
Cholera is not new to Sudan. In 2017, a previous outbreak killed at least 700 people and infected about 22,000 in less than two months.
Outside of this latest outbreak, the World Health Organization (WHO) has recorded 78 deaths from cholera between the start of this year and July 28 in Sudan, while some 2,400 people have been infected across the country as a whole.
