Sudan: War Inflicts 11 Bln USD Damage on Health Sector
Medical Personel in Sudan, July 2024 Photo: @alignmnh
July 23, 2024 Hour: 8:00 pm
According to the minister despite efforts led by the ministry and international partners, including the World Health Organization (WHO), to improve the response to the citizens’ health needs, the damage to the sector was unamendable in short term.
On Tuesday, Sudan’s Health Minister Haitham Mohamed Ibrahim stated that the ongoing war between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has wreaked havoc on the country’s health sector, with an estimated loss of nearly 11 billion U.S. dollars on hospitals and health centers.
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A large number of major hospitals in Khartoum and some other states, including Darfur, Kordofan, Gezira, and Sinnar States, were sabotaged and went out of service due to the current war, Ibrahim told Xinhua in an exclusive interview.
“We are struggling to remove those effects and restore medical service to a reasonable level,” the minister said.
However, according to the minister despite efforts led by the ministry and international partners, including the World Health Organization (WHO), to improve the response to the citizens’ health needs, the damage to the sector was unamendable in short term.
“Medical supplies worth more than 500 million dollars at the Central Medical Supplies was completely looted, while drug stores in Darfur as well as cold supply chains were destroyed,” he said.
From mid-April to December last year, more than 200 ambulances and 79 vehicles for transporting medical supplies were damaged, and nearly 26 pharmaceutical factories were destroyed, he said, noting that more than 50 medical personnel lost their lives while providing medical services across the country.
Ibrahim announced an intervention plan to improve the performance of the health sector amid the difficulties posed by the continued clashes.
He said the plan covers four basic aspects, including ensuring drug supply, health institutions operation, maternal and child health care, and epidemics and health emergencies response.
He noted that there’s an estimated budget of 17 billion Sudanese pounds (about 29 million U.S. dollars) to respond to seasonal epidemics, including cholera and dengue fever, given the fact that the rainy season had already started in June in some areas across Sudan.
Cholera and dengue fever had killed 391 people last year, according to the ministry.
The WHO said in a report, published in June, that nearly 15 million people are estimated to need urgent lifesaving health care services in the country. Health cluster partners are aiming to reach 4.9 million of them, but currently only 26 percent of the total 178 million U.S. dollars required is funded, it said.
Sudan has been embroiled in a deadly conflict between the SAF and the RSF since mid-April 2023, which has so far claimed at least 16,650 lives, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in an update last month.
Over 7.7 million people have been displaced internally within Sudan since the outbreak of the conflict, while about 2.2 million others have crossed borders into neighboring countries, according to the figures released on June 25 by the UN International Organization for Migration.
Autor: OSG
Fuente: DW-Africanews
