The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) warned that over three million people including five lakh children under five, are at risk of cholera in Sudan.
More than 70 per cent of hospitals in conflict-affected areas are non-operational, and frontline healthcare workers have not been paid in months, it said. Since the outbreak of the civil conflict, epidemic diseases such as cholera, malaria, measles, and dengue fever have spread, leading to hundreds of deaths.
According to UNICEF, the vaccination coverage in Sudan has fell to some 50 per cent from 85 per cent before the outbreak of the internal conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces in April last year.
Sudan’s Health Ministry had declared a cholera outbreak in the country in August, deteriorating environmental conditions caused by the conflict and the use of unclean water led to spread of cholera.