NEW YORK, (Pakistan Point News - 11th Jul, 2025) Tom Fletcher, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator at OCHA, announced the allocation of US$5 million to support urgent response efforts to the cholera outbreak in Sudan.
In a statement, Fletcher said that this new funding will allow UN agencies to scale up time-critical health, water, sanitation and hygiene activities to stem further spread of the disease. However, more resources are needed without delay, as humanitarian partners required $50 million to sustain cholera response operations through to the end of 2025.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) warned that the outbreak is being fuelled by ongoing conflict, mass displacement and the collapse of public health and water systems.
Since July 2024, Sudanese health authorities had reported more than 84,000 suspected cases and over 2,100 deaths across 17 of Sudan’s 18 states, with upwards of 33,000 cases recorded this year alone. However, partners warned that under-reporting might be masking the true scale of the outbreak. More than 33.5 million people - including 5.7 million children under 5 - were at risk.
Khartoum, Aj Jazirah, Gedaref and White Nile states accounted for over 70 percent of all reported cases. Khartoum alone had reported more than 23,400 suspected cases. The outbreak was now expanding in Darfur, with cross-border transmission reported into Chad and South Sudan.
OCHA warned that the ongoing rainy season, which lasts through October, threatened to worsen the crisis by contaminating water sources and driving further infections.
