42 cholera dead in South Darfur camp

In two months, 42 people have died of cholera in Kalma camp for displaced people in South Darfur. 539 others have been infected.

The deaths occurred between 26 June and 20 August, the coordinator of the camp in Nyala state, Yagoub Abdallah Furi, informed Radio Dabanga yesterday.

“There are three medical isolation centres belonging to two organisations from the United States that have been established in the camp since the cholera broke out here in June.”

Currently there are 37 hospitalised cases at the camp's isolation wards. “There is a large shortage of intravenous solutions. We hope organisations working in the medical field and the Ministry of Health to provide us with medicines.”

The epidemic reached Manawashi, north of Nyala city, in the beginning of August.

Central Darfur

At least 36 people have been infected with cholera in Central Darfur’s Nierteti in the past 11 days. Four of them died, sources reported to Radio Dabanga. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported in its latest biweekly bulletin that “humanitarian access and insecurity remain major challenges for the implementation of key health and protection interventions” in Central Darfur.

“Nierteti's hospital faces gaps in medicines, including oral and intravenous re-hydration solutions [..]," OCHA stated. “In Zalingei hospital, there are several sanitation issues, including lack of latrines and evidence of improper solid waste management [..].”

National epidemic

The National Epidemiological Corporation reported in early July that nearly 24,000 Sudanese have been infected and 940 cholera patients have died since the outbreak of the infectious disease in Blue Nile state in August last year.

The Sudanese authorities however, refuse to call the disease by its name, and instead refer to it as “Acute Watery Diarrhoea”. The National Intelligence and Security Service has repeatedly warned medics and the press in the country not to make mention of cholera.

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