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Once again, Darfur is making headlines. According
to a report by the World Health Organization (WHO), Sudan’s Federal Ministry of
Health (FMoH) notified the organization of a yellow fever outbreak in seven
localities in Central and South Darfur.
The report pointed out that, since the
first week of October, a total of 84 suspected cases; including 32 deaths have
been reported from the districts of Azoom, Kass, Mershing, Nertiti, Nyala, Wadi
Salih and Zalingei.
However, fresh information confirms that
the death toll is over 50 and rising.
Some observers suspect a government cover-up
where officials delayed the announcement of the outbreak fearing that it may
hurt the export of cattle.
As if this wasn’t bad enough, to this
moment there is not a single laboratory in the entire country for diagnosis of
such diseases. This may be one of the reasons behind the delayed alert, but is
hardly an excuse since the WHO recommends that every at-risk country have at
least one national laboratory where basic yellow fever blood tests can be
performed.
One confirmed case of yellow fever in an
unvaccinated population should be considered an outbreak, and a confirmed case
in any context must be fully investigated.
The FMoH confirmed the emergence of new
cases among local populations in the south western regions of El-Geneina in
West Darfur and adjacent areas in Central Darfur.
In the meantime, the State Health
Ministry of South Darfur disclosed their urgent need for approximately 9
million doses of vaccines for the people of Darfur in the battle against the
'epidemic disease', adding it could take more than two weeks for the vaccines
to arrive.
It seems that
Darfurians fortunate enough to survive guns will now have to die anyway because
of disease and neglect!
What is needed is full collaboration of
all relevant national and international agencies working in health and handling
of humanitarian crises to find quick solutions and save lives at risk.
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