‘Dangerous’ spread of COVID-19 in Khartoum

The COVID-19 prevalence rate in Khartoum reached 20.1 per 10,000 residents. Director Mahjoub Menoufeli of Khartoum state’s Ministry of Health called this “a dangerous indicator”.

The Khartoum state Ministry of Health recorded 134 new COVID-19 cases and seven deaths over the weekend. In total, 18,004 cases have been recorded in the state. 744 patients died, 8,343 patients recovered. Khartoum locality continues to record the highest infection rates, with 5,498 cases registered so far.

Last week, Khartoum state reported a ‘remarkable increase’ in COVID-19 cases.

At the beginning of December, the prestigious Imperial College London (ICL) university published a report that says only two per cent of all COVID-19 deaths have been reported in Khartoum.

Local markets closed

In neighbouring El Gezira, local markets were closed and the re-opening of schools has been postponed to January 17 because of the continuing increase of COVID-19 cases.

Dozens of people gathered in front of the state government offices in the capital Wad Madani to protest against the closure of the markets and the soaring prices, in particular the new price of SDG 600* set by the state government for a cylinder of cooking gas.

River Nile state

In River Nile state in northern Sudan, the state Ministry of Health recorded 18 new coronavirus cases on Friday and Saturday. Four patients died, and 10 patients recovered.

In total, 252 COVID-19 cases were registered in the state since March last year when the pandemic reached Sudan. 32 people died of the disease and 109 recovered. The River Nile state daily epidemiological report shows that the new infections were recorded in the localities of Abu Hamad, Berber, Atbara, Ed Damer, and Shendi.

The federal Ministry of Health has not issued COVID-19 statistics since December 22, when it announced a total of 23,316 COVID-19 cases registered since March 2020, including 1,468 deaths and 13,524 recoveries.

* USD 1 = SDG 55 at the time of posting, according to the daily middle US Dollar rate quoted by the CBoS. Effective foreign exchange rates however can vary widely on Sudan’s parallel market, where the greenback sold yesterday for SDG 258.

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