Health situation in eastern Sudan’s Tokar ‘stable’

The health situation in Tokar in Red Sea state has become stable, according to the locality’s commissioner.

Mekki Abdallah, Commissioner of Tokar locality, told Radio Dabanga on Friday that although the hospital of Tokar did receive new patients suffering from a high fever the day before, the situation can be called stable.

He said that the authorities of Tokar carried out an anti-fly spraying campaign on Thursday and Friday.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, Tokar Hospital received more than 60 patients, suspected to suffer from haemorrhagic fever.

The commissioner strongly denied the spread of haemorrhagic fever in the area. He told Radio Dabanga on Wednesday that a medical team arrived in the locality and confirmed that “these fevers are normal in the summer, including malaria”.

Viral haemorrhagic fevers

Viral haemorrhagic fevers (VHFs) are a diverse group of animal and human illnesses in which fever and haemorrhage are caused by several distinct families of viruses. These include the Ebola and Marburg, Lassa fever, and yellow fever viruses. VHFs affect many organs, damage blood vessels, and affect the body's ability to regulate itself. Some VHFs cause mild disease, but some, like Ebola or Marburg, cause severe disease and death.

In 2012, a yellow fever epidemic spread in Darfur. According to the UN World Health Organisation it was “Africa's worst in decades”. Between September and December, 732 cases of yellow fever were reported in Darfur, including 165 deaths.

Several parts of Sudan were hit by haemorrhagic fever in 2014. The disease spread as well in Red Sea state, “but the state government and health authorities have imposed a blackout on the disease, which kills people in eastern Sudan on a daily basis,” activists told this station in June that year.