El Gedaref: 52 patients killed, infected by diarrhoea

Medical sources in the eastern Sudanese state reported that four patients died of acute watery diarrhoea in the past week. 49 people have been infected and hospitalised.

A medical worker told Radio Dabanga on Tuesday that three patients died in El Gedaref hospital, where there are 22 infected cases.

“There are also deaths in Saraf Saada, a village near Basunda that have not been counted. But the number [of infected patients] in the Saraf Saada health centre has risen to 26. A number of them were transferred to El Gedaref hospital.”

The medical source demanded from the authorities to declare the spread of the disease in the state, and provide correct information to the public about the casualties and infections.

Basunda lies in Eastern El Gallabat locality which borders Ethiopia. Gamar El Tahir works in the hospital of Doka there. “One woman died from acute watery diarrhoea here on Wednesday. Our hospital wards have been overcrowded with patients.”

El Tahir said that the disease has also been reported in El Hamra in Eastern El Gallabat, prompting the authorities to shut down the village market in order to avoid further spreading of the disease this week.

Last December a ministry official said that at least 5,000 people, including children, have been infected with watery diarrhoea across six states in Sudan. The Ministry of Health initially denied most reports of the spread of the deadly disease, but has warned the public not to use unsafe drinking water.

'Food poisoning'

Sudan's Federal Health Minister, Bahar Idris Abu Garda, said that the Ministry of Health in Khartoum State is lying, when it remarked that the infection of approximately 180 students in Ed Babikir Quran School in eastern Nile was caused by food poisoning.

Abu Garda stressed that the students “suffered from acute watery diarrhoea after drinking contaminated water.”

Speaking to the press this week, the minister denied that students succumbed to the disease and explained that they have undergone treatment at Alban Jadeed, Ahmed Gassim in Bahri, and El Tamayos hospitals. The Central Committee of Sudanese Doctors reported the infections among the school children on Tuesday.