New ‘watery diarrhoea’ cases in Central Darfur’s isolation wards

The isolation ward in Nierteti Hospital has received four new cases of ‘acute watery diarrhoea’ infection, in addition to dozens of new cases in small villages, on Monday and Tuesday.

Two of the new patients arrived from the northern Nierteti camp for displaced people, a volunteer in the hospital told Radio Dabanga. The two other cases originate from Guldo in western Jebel Marra. The total number of cases amounted to 77 people on Tuesday.

A paramedic told Radio Dabanga from Nierteti that although no samples have been taken to determine the nature of the disease, the symptoms are similar to those of cholera.

Meanwhile the isolation centres in Mara and Kuweila villages, east of Nierteti, recorded 44 new cases on Monday and Tuesday. An activist reported that the Kuweila isolation ward is currently treating 54 patients.

In Mara, 42 patients have been submitted in the isolation centre.

In the past days sources reported to Radio Dabanga that at least 200 people are reportedly infected in the eatsern part of the locality. A source stated that the disease re-appeared in the area in early February. “It has spread among dozens of villages with about 12,000 inhabitants,” he said. Eleven people  reportedly died of the disease in a week’s time.

Epidemic

In spite of numerous independent confirmations (conducted according to WHO standards) that the disease which broke out in Blue Nile State in August 2016 was cholera, the Sudanese authorities and several international organisations still call it ‘Acute Watery Diarrhoea’.

The infectious disease spread to other eastern Sudan states, and later to northern and central Sudan. After it fully hit Khartoum in May last year, it spread to the western part of the country.

According to the WHO and the Sudanese Ministry of Health in mid-October 2017, the total number of reported cases across 18 states of Sudan reached more than 35,000 people – including 800 related deaths since the outbreak of the disease.

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