Sudan launches a 10-day cholera vaccination campaign in Khartoum as war continues
Associated Press video footage on Wednesday showed officials administering the vaccine to children and others. Healthcare worker Aziza Berima said the campaign in Khartoum began Sunday and targets over 150,000 people.
Resident Montaser al-Sayed said he and his family recently returned home after being displaced by fighting. They feared cholera in the chaotic conditions but said the vaccination campaign reassured them.
'As a mother, I was relieved,' said another resident, Razaz Abdullah.
Cholera is spreading at an alarming rate and the collapsed health system makes it 'extremely hard to trace and contain,' Sophie Dresser, director of programs at Mercy Corps-Sudan, told the AP.
Last month, the United Nations humanitarian office said over 32,000 suspected cholera cases have been reported in Sudan this year. Since the outbreak was declared in July 2024, more than 83,000 cases and 2,100 deaths have been reported, the U.N. said, citing Sudan's health ministry.
The U.N. says cases are rising in Sudan's more remote western region of Darfur. The health ministry has reported 1,440 suspected cases and 74 deaths there.
Although vaccination campaigns launched last year across some areas in Sudan, the disease has continued to spread in recent months amid the ongoing fighting between the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and the Sudanese army.
The civil war erupted in April 2023 in Khartoum before spreading across the country. The fighting has killed over 40,000 people, displaced as many as 12 million and pushed many to the brink of famine.
The World Health Organization describes cholera as a 'disease of poverty' because it spreads where there is poor sanitation and a lack of clean water. The diarrheal disease is caused when people eat food or water contaminated with the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. It is easily treatable with rehydration solutions and antibiotics, but in severe cases the disease can kill within hours if left untreated.
A spike in cholera cases had been reported in Khartoum, where 172 people died and more than 2,500 others were infected in a week in late May. A 10-day vaccination campaign at the time reached over 2.2 million people, the WHO reported in July.
Aid organizations warn that the situation, including heavy rains, is concerning in other areas of Sudan including North Kordofan, White Nile and River Nile provinces.
'In places like Darfur and Kordofan, people are living in crowded shelters with poor sanitation and little access to clean water or medical care, conditions where cholera thrives,' Dresser said.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
2 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Bitter tasting vegetable linked to surprising health benefits: 'So much potential'
Vegetables and spices readily available at markets and grocers around Australia can have a significant impact on our bodies, but scientists have yet to fully explore their health potential. Dipa Kamdar is a senior lecturer in pharmacy practice at Kingston University in London, and she's becoming increasingly interested in the nutritional content of foods from Asia and Africa that are being regularly adopted in modern Western cooking. 'I think there's so much potential in foods and herbs and spices, but we've probably only explored the top layer,' she told Yahoo News Australia. One of the foods she's interested in is bitter melon, a long, green, bumpy fruit that's often paired with garlic and pork in Chinese cooking, or fried in traditional Indian curries. Kamdar became intrigued by its health potential when her father-in-law revealed he was mixing its extract into drinks to help his diabetes. 'Scientists have tried to see what the active compounds are in bitter melon, to see what is helping diabetes, and they think it could be mimicking insulin. But the data on it is limited,' she said. Anyone with health concerns should consult a doctor before eating bitter melon because it can negatively impact the health of pregnant women, people with hyperglycemia, or those with damage to their liver or kidneys. And it should only be eaten when it's green, well before it turns orange and splits open to reveal its seeds. While bitter melon vines are easy to grow, they can become an invasive pest. And some councils warn it can out-compete native vegetation. Are bad-tasting foods good for us? Kamdar's research into the health properties of foods has found that many with a bitter taste 'show promise' in terms of their mineral properties. 'A lot of the spices and vegetables that taste the worst for most people tend to be more therapeutic compared with the sweeter ones,' she said. Due to her own cultural background, Kamdar is increasingly interested in foods that feature in India's traditional medicine, a practice that goes back more than 3,000 years. 'What we do know is that it's generally quite safe to eat most foods in culinary amounts, but when you start taking specific supplements, that's when people need to be really careful, particularly if they're taking other medicines. 'For instance, someone on diabetes medication would need to be careful their blood glucose doesn't drop too low if they're eating bitter melon.' Ancient claim about rosemary may be true While it's possible to standardise doses of medications like paracetamol, it's much harder with natural foods. Growing conditions, varieties of the plants themselves, and how old they are can all play a role. 'There's so much variability, it's very hard to standardise foods across different batches,' Kamdar said. Fears grow about silent siblings with the rise of social media sperm donations Two siblings among latest child deaths as devastating outbreak grips Pacific Toxic chemicals in simple household items pose worrying 'threat' Limited research into foods appears to indicate that some ancient legends about plants are sometimes grounded in truth. For instance, rosemary is traditionally worn for 'remembrance', particularly at funerals, and there are some indications that its scent can help improve memory tasks. 'Ashwagandha seems very good for stress, anxiety, and potentially sleep. There have been limited trials that show it could be beneficial,' she said. 'A lot of these food ideas I get from my mother, and I try to test things on myself. My cholesterol is a little bit high, and recently I've been having fenugreek and carum seeds, and it seems to have come down. 'A lot of foods have an effect. For colds and flu, it's pretty well-known that turmeric, honey, lemon and ginger are good natural remedies.' Love Australia's weird and wonderful environment? 🐊🦘😳 Get our new newsletter showcasing the week's best stories.
Medscape
3 minutes ago
- Medscape
Monthly Ivermectin Cuts Malaria Incidence in Endemic Area
TOPLINE: Monthly administration of ivermectin for 3 consecutive months at the beginning of the short rainy season was associated with a lower incidence of malaria than albendazole in an area with high coverage and use of bed nets, with no safety concerns identified during the trial. METHODOLOGY: Malaria remains a significant global health issue, and rising mosquito resistance to insecticides undermines control measures. As a result, ivermectin, a broad-spectrum anti-parasitic drug, has gained interest as a potential candidate to reduce malaria transmission. Researchers conducted a cluster-randomized trial in Kwale, Kenya, to evaluate the efficacy and safety of mass ivermectin administration at the start of the short rainy season (October-December) for malaria transmission control. A total of 84 clusters comprising 28,932 participants — including all male and nonpregnant female residents weighing more than 15 kg and without severe illness — were identified. They were randomly allocated to receive either ivermectin (400 μg/kg body weight) or albendazole (400 mg) once monthly for 3 consecutive months. Efficacy was assessed in 2871 children aged 5-15 years. The primary outcome was the cumulative incidence of malaria in children. Safety was assessed in all participants, with children followed up prospectively for 6 months after the first round of mass drug administration. TAKEAWAY: The administration of ivermectin reduced malaria incidence by 26% compared with albendazole (2.20 vs 2.66 infections per child-year at risk; adjusted incidence rate ratio [IRR], 0.74; P = .02). A secondary analysis showed that the time to the first infection was 22.5% longer with ivermectin than with albendazole (120 vs 93 days). The incidence of adverse events per 100 treated participants was higher with ivermectin (6.19) than albendazole (3.75). Serious adverse events were rare — 0.023 and 0.037 per 100 treated participants in the ivermectin and albendazole groups, respectively (IRR 0.63; P = .46). IN PRACTICE: 'This trial provides evidence to support the use of ivermectin as a complementary strategy for malaria control and prevention in areas where malaria is mesoendemic and transmission is perennial,' the authors wrote. SOURCE: The study was led by Carlos Chaccour, MD, PhD, ISGlobal in Barcelona, Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Enfermedades Infecciosas in Madrid, and the Navarra Center for International Development, Universidad de Navarra in Pamplona, Spain. It was published online on July 23, 2025, in The New England Journal of Medicine. LIMITATIONS: The study was limited by the absence of data on the incidence of malaria before the intervention, potential underestimation of ivermectin's effect due to more frequent artemether-lumefantrine use in the albendazole group, and higher treatment coverage in albendazole clusters, probably because of a lower pill burden with albendazole than with weight-based ivermectin dosing. DISCLOSURES: The study was supported by the BOHEMIA grant from Unitaid. Additionally, ISGlobal received support from the Spanish Ministry of Science and the Generalitat de Catalunya. The authors declared having no conflicts of interest. This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication.
New York Times
3 hours ago
- New York Times
Sudan, Battered by War, Is Hit by Its ‘Worst Cholera Outbreak' in Years
The cholera ward in Tawila, Sudan, was overflowing the first week of August, a grim sign of what the medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières said in a release on Thursday was 'the worst cholera outbreak the country has seen in years.' International charities have warned that the spread of the disease, no longer contained within Sudan's borders, might exacerbate similar outbreaks across the region. 200 MILES Red Sea Egypt Libya Port Sudan Sudan Nile Darfur Region Chad Khartoum Al Fasher Tawila Ethiopia Central African Republic South Sudan By The New York Times 'People cross borders,' Sheldon Yett, UNICEF's representative to Sudan, said in a phone interview on Wednesday. 'This epidemic has already crossed into South Sudan, and it's crossing into Chad. Unless we're able to address this crisis, we risk it rippling across borders for weeks and months to come.' Sudan has had nearly 100,000 suspected cases of cholera and has reported more than 2,400 cholera-related deaths since the country's Health Ministry declared an outbreak a year ago, Médecins Sans Frontières, also known as Doctors Without Borders, said in its statement. The group said it had documented 40 deaths over the span of one week in the western Darfur region of Sudan alone. The town of Tawila, in the state of North Darfur, has become a hotbed for disease. The town is about 44 miles from the city of El Fasher, the Sudanese Army's last holdout in the Darfur region that has been under siege for over a year. The local population has ballooned to include hundreds of thousands of people fleeing nearby violence. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
