Juba — Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has set up a 20-bed cholera treatment unit (CTU) at the Renk Civil Hospital in South Sudan, in response to a cholera outbreak declared by the Ministry of Health (MoH) on 28 October. We call on all organisations in Upper Nile state to help prevent the spread of the disease within Upper Nile State and beyond. The MSF-supported CTU has so far received and treated 45 cholera cases, and recorded among them two deaths.
Most of the patients are people arriving from the war in Sudan, where a cholera outbreak was declared in August 2024. However, the MSF teams have also received patients from the local population of Renk. Contaminated water sources, open defecation, and overcrowded living conditions due to new arrivals from Sudan pose a significant threat to both refugees and the local community.
“Given the inadequate, overcrowded living conditions and continued influx of refugees and returnees from Sudan into [the cities of] Renk and Malakal, there is an imminent urgent need for a response to improve the water, sanitation and hygiene situation to prevent further spread of the disease,” says Emanuele Montobbio, MSF’s field coordinator for Renk emergency programme. “In the past weeks, an average of up to 800 people are entering Renk daily from Sudan, fleeing from the war in the country.” In Malakal, less than 300km away from Renk, MSF teams have observed a sharp rise in cholera cases.
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