The World Health Organization (WHO) warned this Tuesday, 25, about the “high” biohazards after the occupation of a health laboratory in Sudan.
“Yesterday I received a call from the head of the central public health laboratory. It is occupied by one of the belligerent parties,” WHO representative in Sudan, Nima Saeed Abid, said via video call at a press conference in Geneva.
He added that “they kidnapped all the technicians in the laboratory, which is now under full control of one of the warring parties as a military base”.
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The situation is “extremely dangerous” because the laboratory contains samples of the pathogens of measles, cholera and polio, added Saeed Abid.
The representative insists that the occupation presents an “enormous biological risk”.
Cholera is an acute diarrheal disease, which can cause death in a matter of hours if left untreated.
Measles is a highly contagious viral disease, as is polio, which mainly affects children under 5 years old.
The WHO has so far managed to detect 14 attacks against the health sector in Sudan, since the beginning of the violence that killed eight people and left two injured.
“Attacks on healthcare are condemnable and must stop,” the organization said.
The clashes that erupted in mid-April in Sudan have already claimed 459 lives and injured 4,072, the WHO said on Tuesday. However, he specified that this information is from the Sudanese Ministry of Health and that the organization was unable to verify it.
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