Charity group urges speedy response to cholera outbreak in South Sudan

JUBA, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) — Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), an international medical charity, stressed on Thursday the need to improve sanitation and hygiene for people living in overcrowded conditions to prevent further spread of cholera in South Sudan’s refugee-hosting state.
The MSF said it has established a 20-bed cholera treatment facility at Renk Civil Hospital in Upper Nile State, where it treated 45 cholera cases, two of whom died from the infection.
South Sudanese authorities declared a cholera outbreak on Oct. 28 in the northern town of Renk, the main entry point for thousands of refugees and returnees fleeing conflict in neighboring Sudan.
Emanuele Montobbio, MSF’s field coordinator for the Renk emergency program, said the team has been receiving patients from the local population of Renk. “Given the inadequate, overcrowded living conditions and the continued influx of refugees and returnees from Sudan into 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,” Montobbio said in a statement issued in Juba, the capital of South Sudan.
He said that in recent weeks, up to 800 people per day have been entering Renk from Sudan, even as humanitarian groups report a substantial rise in cholera cases at camps for people displaced by the conflict in Sudan.
The MSF also announced the establishment of a cholera treatment center in Assosa, less than 10 km from Malakal Town Hospital, with a capacity of up to 100 beds, where its teams are treating cholera patients from Malakal’s protection of civilians site, which hosts thousands of people in close proximity.
The charity urged partners to establish treatment facilities within the protection of civilian sites to prevent loss of life, as the number of cholera cases continues to increase. ■