Suspected cholera numbers continue to drop in Central Darfur

Isolation centres in the town of Nierteti and its surrounding villages continue to receive new cases of acute watery diarrhoea – suspected to be cholera – however medics are cautiously optimistic that the outbreak is past its critical peak.

Seven new infections were admitted to the medical isolation centres in Nierteti town and the villages of Mara and Korifal in Nierteti locality in Central Darfur on Tuesday.

Voluntary work activists reported to Radio Dabanga that on Tuesday the isolation ward in the hospital of Nierteti received four new cases, the centre of Korifal recorded two cases and Mara one case.

A voluntary work activist said nine patients in total were still being being treated in the three centres of Nierteti, Mara and Korifal, but the centre of Turr is empty and that the centre of Kuweila village has only one old case.

‘Watery diarrhoea’

In spite of numerous independent confirmations (conducted according to World Health Organisation (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 spread of the infectious disease in Sudan last year turned into epidemic proportions. The WHO and the Sudanese Ministry of Health reported in mid-October that the total number of recorded cases reached more than 35,000 people – including 800 related deaths. Doctors of Sudan’s National Epidemiological Corporation reported in early July however, that nearly 24,000 Sudanese had been infected and 940 cholera patients died.

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in January, a slight increase in ‘acute watery diarrhoea’ cases was reported in the country during the last week of 2017 and the first week of this year: 46 and 30 new cases respectively were registered.

Follow #CholeraInSudan, #الكوليرا_السودان for ongoing coverage by Radio Dabanga