Death toll from ‘watery diarrhoea’ rises in Central Darfur

Two people died and four others were infected with ‘acute watery diarrhoea’ suspected to be cholera in Nierteti in Central Darfur on Thursday.

A voluntary work activist reported to Radio Dabanga the death of two people and the isolation centre’s reception of two new cases, two from the northern camp for displaced people and two from east Nierteti villages on Thursday.

He explained that the total number at Nierteti isolation centre has amounted to 33 cases until Thursday.

The volunteer told Radio Dabanga that Kuweila village isolation ward west of Jebel Marra received six new cases on Thursday.

He pointed out that the total number in the isolation ward has amounted to 28 cases until Thursday.

He said that Mara village isolation ward received eight cases where the total number of has amounted to 42 cases until Thursday.

The chairwoman of the health committee in the Parliament, Imtithal El Rayah, announced the death of eight people, the infection 140 others and that 34 of them have recovered in the districts of Nierteti.

She said in a press statement that the armed movements have allowed the Ministry of Health to treat the patients suffering from watery diarrhoea in areas under their control in Central Darfur, after intervention by the native administration in the region under the guidance of the state authorities.

She explained that the areas of infection in the state are concentrated in Mara, Kuweila, Nierteti and Gladwa.

She expressed concern about the local inhabitants’ delay of reporting the infections.

In the past days sources reported to Radio Dabanga that at least 200 people are reportedly infected in the eatsern part of the locality. A source stated that the disease re-appeared in the area in early February. “It has spread among dozens of villages with about 12,000 inhabitants,” he said. Eleven people  reportedly died of the disease in a week’s time.

Epidemic

In spite of numerous independent confirmations (conducted according to WHO standards) that the disease which broke out in Blue Nile State in August 2016 was cholera, the Sudanese authorities and several international organisations still call it ‘Acute Watery Diarrhoea’.

The infectious disease spread to other eastern Sudan states, and later to northern and central Sudan. After it fully hit Khartoum in May last year, it spread to the western part of the country.

According to the WHO and the Sudanese Ministry of Health in mid-October 2017, the total number of reported cases across 18 states of Sudan reached more than 35,000 people – including 800 related deaths since the outbreak of the disease.

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