{"id":5074,"date":"2023-05-01T20:02:16","date_gmt":"2023-05-01T15:02:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/?p=5074"},"modified":"2023-05-01T20:02:18","modified_gmt":"2023-05-01T15:02:18","slug":"sudan-conflict-driving-health-sector-toward-disaster-un","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/news\/sudan-conflict-driving-health-sector-toward-disaster-un\/","title":{"rendered":"Sudan conflict driving health sector toward &#8216;disaster&#8217;: UN"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Cairo: Sudan&#8217;s already troubled health sector faces the risk of &#8220;disaster&#8221; after more than two weeks of heavy fighting have rocked the poverty-stricken country, a UN World Health Organization official warns.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Even before the deadly conflict broke out on April 15, &#8220;the healthcare system in Sudan faced numerous crises&#8230; and was extremely fragile,&#8221; Ahmed al-Mandhari, WHO regional director for the eastern Mediterranean, told AFP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now &#8212; with hospitals bombed, medicines running low and many doctors fleeing the country &#8212; &#8220;it is a disaster in every sense of the word,&#8221; he said, warning of the growing threat of cholera, malaria and other diseases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The battles raging in Sudan have pitted the Sudanese Armed Forces led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan against the powerful paramilitary Rapid Support Forces of his deputy turned rival Mohamed Hamdan Daglo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>More than 500 people have been killed and nearly 5,000 injured, according to official figures, but the real toll is feared to be much higher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Only 16 percent of Khartoum&#8217;s hospitals are now fully functional, Mandhari said, and there is a &#8220;real shortage in medical staff&#8230; especially specialised medical staff, for example in surgery and in anaesthesia&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The most vulnerable include about four million sick or pregnant women and 50,000 children suffering from acute malnutrition who will no longer receive vital care, Mandhari said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;There are approximately three million women or girls who are exposed to various types of&#8230; gender-based violence&#8221;, including sexual violence, he said, adding that children face &#8220;psychological pressures&#8221; from conflict and displacement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Malaria is endemic in Sudan and could spread when the rainy season starts in the coming weeks, he said, also warning of the threat of a cholera outbreak as clean water becomes increasingly sparse.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cairo: Sudan&#8217;s already troubled health sector faces the risk of &#8220;disaster&#8221; after more than two weeks of heavy fighting have rocked the poverty-stricken country, a UN World Health Organization official warns. Even before the deadly conflict broke out on April 15, &#8220;the healthcare system in Sudan faced numerous crises&#8230; and was extremely fragile,&#8221; Ahmed al-Mandhari, [&hellip;]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":5075,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[396,2,73],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest","category-news","category-security"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5074"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5074"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5074\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}