Minister Haitham Mohamed Ibrahim declared a cholera epidemic due to contaminated drinking water and weather conditions.
Sudan is facing a cholera outbreak that has killed nearly 20 people and infected hundreds in recent weeks, health officials say.
At least 22 people have died from the disease and at least 354 cases of cholera have been confirmed in the war-torn country in recent weeks, Health Minister Haitham Mohamed Ibrahim said in a statement on Sunday.
He declared a cholera epidemic in Sudan on Saturday, blaming “weather conditions and contaminated drinking water” for the outbreak.
He said the decision was taken in coordination with authorities in the eastern Kassala state, UN agencies and experts following “the discovery of the cholera virus by the public health laboratory.”
World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Margaret Harris said at a press conference on Friday that 11,327 cases of cholera have been reported in Sudan so far, with 316 deaths.
“We expect there are more than are being reported,” she added.
According to the WHO, cholera is a fast-growing, highly contagious infection that causes diarrhea, leads to severe dehydration and can be fatal within hours if left untreated. It is transmitted by ingesting contaminated food or water and can be fatal within hours if left untreated. Children under the age of five are particularly at risk.
Cholera is not uncommon in Sudan: a major outbreak in 2017 killed at least 700 people and infected around 22,000 in less than two months.
But the disease outbreak is just the latest disaster for the region.
Devastating seasonal floods in recent weeks have added to the misery, killing dozens of people and washing away vital infrastructure in 12 of Sudan's 18 states, local authorities said. The floods have forced some 118,000 people to flee, according to the United Nations migration agency.
Further complicating the situation is the fact that the region has been in turmoil since simmering tensions between the army and powerful paramilitary groups exploded last April, plunging much of the country into fighting and sparking a civil war.
The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (known as “Hemedti”), have been fighting for power and control in the African country of 46 million people.
The conflict has turned the capital, Khartoum, and other cities into battlefields, destroying civilian infrastructure and an already-struggling health system, limiting access to basic medical care and forcing many hospitals and medical facilities to close.
The war has killed thousands of people, displaced more than 10.7 million and pushed many to starvation, already evident in the vast displaced camps in northern Darfur's devastated areas.
New talks aimed at ending 16-month-old conflict in Sudan began in Switzerland on Wednesday, albeit without troops present.
The United States, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, the African Union, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and the United Nations are trying to bring the Sudanese army and the RSF into ceasefire negotiations.
Sudan's military-controlled Sovereign Council said Sunday it would send a government delegation to Cairo to meet with U.S. officials, as the United States steps up pressure for the military to take part in ceasefire talks underway in Switzerland.
