West Darfur camp records six cholera deaths

Murnei camp in West Darfur recorded six deaths over the last days, and 13 new cases of cholera. Isolation wards in Central Darfur recorded three deaths over the weekend, and reports re-emerged from El Roseires locality in Blue Nile.

A sheikh in Murnei camp for displaced people told Radio Dabanga that by Sunday, a total of 22 patients were admitted to the camp's isolation ward. From Sunday 27 August until last Thursday, 17 people reportedly succumbed to cholera.

In Zamzam camp, south of El Fasher city, four new cases of cholera were recorded on Friday and Saturday. A camp elder told this station that the isolation ward was closed on the first day of Eid Al Adha, “because of the absence of medical personnel, so the four new patients had to be transferred to El Fasher for treatment”.

Central Darfur

Isolation centres in Zalingei and Abta village, Central Darfur, recorded three deaths and 37 new infection cases from Friday until Sunday, according to the coordinator of camps in the state, El Shafee Abdallah.

In Hamidiya camp, three cholera patients died and 13 people infected with cholera reported to the isolation centre. Meanwhile in the last three days, the Hassahissa, Khamsa Degaig and Teiba camps recorded 17 new cases. The total number of hospitalised cholera cases in the Zalingei Royal Hospital amounted to 76 people as of Sunday.

“From Friday to Sunday, the isolation centre in Abta village near Zalingei recorded seven new cases. The people are from Abta, Tiri, Dirlo and Kalgo,” El Shafee said.

Blue Nile

In Blue Nile state, two people died from cholera and 31 people contracted the disease in the localities Ed Damazin and El Roseires in the last week.

A medical source in the area told Radio Dabanga that the Royal Hospital in Ed Damazin received four cholera cases of cholera, from Arquette North. “Two of them died on Wednesday.”

Another medical source reported that last week, the hospital received 25 cases of cholera from different parts of El Roseires. Four cases were recorded in Gisan locality.

“El Roseires locality recorded the highest number of casualties of all localities in Blue Nile. There is a severe neglect of the number of staff in the isolation wards, because were off spending their Eid Al Adha holiday.”

Blue Nile was the first state to report cases of cholera in September 2016, or 'acute watery diarrhoea' as the Sudanese government has referred to it since the start of the cholera outbreak. A UK-based Sudanese specialist told Radio Dabanga in January that cholera “seems to be a stigma for the government”.

Contagious

Cholera is a fast-developing, highly contagious infection that can spread in areas short of clean drinking water and with poor sanitation. Since the first reports of cholera from Blue Nile in September last year, the disease spread in eastern Sudan, and later to the Northern State and central Sudan’s El Gezira.

The disease has also spread to North Kordofan, and fully hit Khartoum in May, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Sudan said in June. That month, the first cases of cholera in East Darfur appeared in a South Sudanese refugee camp. Within a week, the first reports of the spread of cholera in North Darfur  were accompanied by reports of infections in South Darfur (Kalma camp) and East Darfur.

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