In a statement, the UK branch of the Sudan Doctors' Union criticised the government's handling of the situation and said that the spread of the disease had become a "threat to the lives of citizens".
"The deterioration of health services and the collapse of infrastructure, the failure of the government to carry out its basic duties in the environment, the drying of water pools, the disposal of mosquitos and flies and the accumulation of rubbish in streets and neighbourhoods has contributed greatly to the spread of epidemics and widespread disease," it said.
Free drugs
Laila Hamad, director of the epidemiology department at the Ministry of Health, told reportersearlier this week that the ministry was controlling the situation and delivering necessary services to patients.
“According to the laboratory diagnosis we made, the current disease is both haemorrhagic and chikungunya fevers, so the ministry is exerting wide efforts to control the situation,” said Hamad.
“We delivered the needed services to the people including free drugs and we also deployed more doctors and medical workers in the state.”
Sudan’s Prime Minister Moutaz Mousa Abdallah also called on health authorities to take the situation seriously following an emergency visit to Kassala last Monday.
“I visited Kassala and the fever that is spreading in the state is really a big challenge, but the government has put all its capabilities at the service of the state,” Musa said.
'Now the government is downsizing the crisis and that’s an even more serious mistake'
- Idriss Omer, disaster management expert
Speaking to MEE, the World Health Organisation’s local representative in Sudan said that the WHO had deployed its own teams on the ground alongside Ministry of Health staff to help fight the disease.
“According to the latest reports we received from the Ministry of Health and our teams on the ground there are around 11,000 cases of both chikungunya and dengue fevers,” said Naema Al-Gaseer.
Thousands of people were displaced by flooding in Kassala in 2016 (AFP) She said the organisation was taking steps to prevent the spread of the disease to other states and called on the government and local communities to tackle environmental and hygiene problems caused by the flooding which had enabled the viruses to spread.
“Now we are working to control the situation in Kassala, we have also deployed our teams in the nearest states of Red Sea and El-Gadaref to stop the probable spread to these states, especially as they already have experience with some fevers,” she said.
“The environment is very contaminated after the floods and rains that hit the country in the past months. We have put all of the capacities of the WHO at the service of the people and are working with the Ministry of Health to stop the appearance of any water-related diseases such as diarrhoea which would complicate the situation."
'The disaster will spread'
However local media reports and activists insisted that the fever had already spread to the two states, with at least three cases reported in El-Gadaref and others in Red Sea state according to the United Nations's ReliefWeb news site.
Idriss Omer, a disaster management expert at the University of Khartoum, said that the outbreak in Kassala was a consequence of the government’s mismanagement of multiple crises faced by the country in recent months - and warned that the situation could deteriorate further.
“Most of Sudan has been hit by flooding and heavy rains recently and the pre-disaster plan should have taken into account the the environmental consequences of that but the authorities didn’t do that. Now the government is downsizing the crisis and that’s an even more serious mistake,” he told MEE.
“If things keep going in this way, the third phase will be more complicated and uncontrollable because the disaster will spread across the country.”