“A huge biological risk”. It is with these words that the World Health Organization (WHO) denounces on Tuesday the occupation by the belligerents of a laboratory in the capital of Sudan where samples of highly contagious pathogens are found. “I received a phone call yesterday from the head of the central public health laboratory. It is occupied by one of the fighting parties,” the WHO representative in Sudan, Dr. Nima Saeed Abid, said in a videoconference during a press briefing in Geneva. He did not specify whether it was the army of General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane or the paramilitaries of General Mohamed Hamdane Daglo, who concluded a 72-hour truce under the aegis of the United States, generally respected on Tuesday in Khartoum.
“They chased away all the technicians from the laboratory which is now completely under the control of one of the fighting parties” which uses it as a military base, added Dr. Nima Saeed Abid.
Measles, cholera and poliomyelitis samples
He stressed that the situation is “extremely dangerous” because this national laboratory contains samples of the pathogens of measles, cholera and poliomyelitis. This occupation therefore presents an “enormous biological risk”, he insisted. Cholera is an acute diarrheal disease from which people can die within hours if left untreated. Measles is an extremely contagious viral disease, just like poliomyelitis, which largely affects children under 5 years old.
WHO has so far been able to verify 14 attacks on the health sector in Sudan, which have left eight people dead and two injured. The reserves of blood bags are running out in the country and the absence of generators poses very high biological risks, in addition to “chemical risks”, she also indicated.
The clashes that broke out in mid-April have already left 459 dead and 4,072 injured, according to the WHO, which said it could not verify these figures from the Ministry of Health. Up to 270,000 people could flee from Sudan to Chad and South Sudan, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said. According to Laura lo Castro, UNHCR representative in Chad, 20,000 refugees have arrived in this country. “We expect up to 100,000 refugees in the worst case,” she said, during the press briefing, by videoconference.
In addition, “in South Sudan, the most likely scenario is 125,000 returns of South Sudanese refugees and 45,000 refugees”, said the UNHCR representative in this country, Marie-Hélène Verney, also online. To date, UNHCR has registered the arrival of nearly 4,000 South Sudanese from Sudan, mainly via the Renk border crossing point in Upper Nile state. Some 15.8 million people, about a third of Sudan’s population, needed humanitarian assistance before fighting broke out.