El Gedaref, Sudan: Seven new cholera cases registered in one day

The registration of seven new cases of cholera since yesterday brings the number of new cases in Sudan’s El Gedaref state to 13 in three days.

A source within the healthcare infrastructure told Radio Dabanga on Wednesday that El Saraf El Ahmar area east of Gallabat recorded three infection cases while El Mahla area recorded two new cases. The infection of two people has been reported at the agricultural projects near Shu’aib area of Gireisha locality.

Over the past week, the eastern localities of Gallabat and Gireisha in El Gedaref have registered two deaths and 83 other infections.

Journalist detained

On Monday evening, the security authorities in El Gadaref arrested journalist Ammar El Daw, the El Gedaref correspondent of El Sayha newspaper, and transferred him to Khartoum.

The authorities were acting on a report filed against El Daw by the Minister of Health in the state, Maj. Gen. Ameen El Sadig Wakeel under the Information Crimes Act.

The Minister accuses El Daw of “defamation for publishing materials related to the watery diarrhoea that has swept many localities in the state and led to the death and infection of hundreds”.

Positive tests

Official government sources insist on calling the current cholera outbreak ‘watery diarrhoea’, in spite of the results of repeated tests according to WHO guidelines showing the infection to be cholera. The media have been warned not to report on the outbreak.

In February, the Doctors' Executive Committee said the results of laboratory tests on acute diarrhoea samples conducted in the Ahmed Gasim Hospital in Khartoum proved cholera. Also an infectious diseases specialist and doctors in Sudan declared that they “are very convinced that it is cholera,” and not, as reported by federal and state governments, an outbreak of watery diarrhoea across the eastern Red Sea and El Gedaref states.