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In the isolation ward at the MSF-supported El\u202fGeneina teaching hospital, Ferdos Salih holds her baby, Banan, who is infected with measles. Sudan, 2025. \u00a9 Natalia Romero Pe\u00f1uela\/MSF <\/p>\n\t \tAs measles spreads throughout war-torn Darfur, health authorities must launch a vaccination campaign while UNICEF must urgently coordinate efforts to deliver vaccines and other supplies.<\/p>\n
\n\tPublished: Dec 19, 2025Updated: Dec 19, 2025 \t<\/p>\n
Measles cases are rising rapidly across Sudan\u2019s Central, South and West Darfur states, in the absence of an urgent and effective vaccination campaign.<\/p>\n
More than 1,300 cases have been recorded in health facilities supported by Doctors Without Borders\/M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res (MSF) since September, despite our repeated advocacy for vaccination campaigns and the resumption of routine immunization programs.<\/p>\n
We urge authorities to immediately eliminate all bureaucratic and administrative barriers to transporting vaccines throughout Darfur. At the same time, there must be greater urgency from UNICEF to coordinate efforts to increase the transport and delivery of vaccines, syringes and the necessary supplies. We also call on both the State and Federal Ministries of Health to launch an urgent measles vaccination campaign and a routine immunization program.<\/p>\n
\u201cMeasles is a preventable disease; it requires only routine immunization and timely reactive vaccination,\u201d says Ahmed Fadel, MSF emergency coordinator in Darfur. \u201cBut due to conflict, administrative barriers and delays by key agencies, both have been severely limited. These delays are leaving children exposed to a disease that is also deadly.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat is urgently needed now is for the Ministry of Health \u2014 with the support of health partners, including UNICEF \u2014 to resume routine immunization and ensure sufficient vaccine supplies.\u00a0Countless lives could be saved, yet after more than two and a half years of war, the world continues to fail the people of Sudan.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ahmed Fadel, MSF emergency coordinator in Darfur<\/p>\n
Ferdos Salih brought Banan, her 11-month-old baby who has measles and severe acute malnutrition, to the MSF-supported El\u202fGeneina teaching hospital in West Darfur.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was born prematurely because the war forced us to flee from Omdurman while I was pregnant,\u201d says Ferdos. \u201cShe has suffered a lot with repeated hospitalization. Also because of the war, she couldn\u2019t get vaccinated.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since being displaced, Ferdos and Banan live with two other families. Banan caught measles from her older brother, because there was not enough space in the house to isolate him properly when he first got sick.\u202f<\/p>\n
In the isolation ward at the MSF-supported El\u202fGeneina teaching hospital, Ferdos Salih holds her baby, Banan, who is infected with measles. Sudan, 2025. \u00a9 Natalia Romero Pe\u00f1uela\/MSF <\/p>\n
Conflict makes vaccine shipment almost impossible<\/p>\n
Shipping vaccines for reactive campaigns and immunization programs ix extremely challenging because of the operational environment in Sudan. Ongoing conflict has disrupted import routes and created significant administrative and bureaucratic hurdles for humanitarian actors involved in vaccination efforts. This includes delays linked to authorizations for cross-border shipments and procedures required by Sudanese authorities.<\/p>\n
At the same time, the delivery of vaccines and other supplies necessary to carry out vaccinations are not coordinated sufficiently, arriving at different locations and times. This creates another hurdle to overcome before vaccinations can start.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the main cause of delays,\u201d says Fadel. \u201cThe supply of vaccines and related supplies must be better coordinated so that both arrive to where they are needed much more quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hospitals\u00a0treat growing numbers of measles\u00a0and malnutrition\u00a0patients\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
At Zalingei\u00a0hospital in Central Darfur,\u00a0our\u00a0teams have treated 1,093 measles patients\u00a0in 2025.\u00a0We\u2019ve\u00a0seen a\u00a0sharp increase in recent months\u00a0\u2013\u00a078%\u00a0of\u00a0the year\u2019s\u00a0cases\u00a0have been\u00a0recorded since September. In Nyala\u00a0teaching\u00a0hospital in South Darfur, teams treated 242 measles patients\u00a0this\u00a0year, 95%\u00a0of them since September. Meanwhile, El\u202fGeneina\u00a0teaching\u00a0hospital in West Darfur received 429 measles cases in 2025, with 59%\u00a0reported between September and November.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Matara Abakar brought her\u00a010-month-old son,\u00a0Natrin,\u00a0to\u00a0Zalingei hospital in Central Darfur\u00a0after he\u00a0had been sick for 17 days with a fever, diarrhea,\u00a0cough\u00a0and\u00a0skin rash. He is also severely malnourished.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are\u00a0struggling to find jobs,\u201d says Matara.\u00a0\u201cI\u2019m\u00a0a farmer\u00a0and\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0hard to earn enough money to buy proper food.\u00a0We depend only on\u00a0asida\u00a0[a\u00a0Sudanese food made with sorghum or millet flours].\u201d\u00a0She has two more children who are not fully vaccinated\u00a0either.\u00a0<\/p>\n
More than 34 per cent of patients in Zalingei and Nyala are\u00a0acutely malnourished, which increases the severity of\u00a0measles\u00a0and rapidly leads to life-threatening complications, including pneumonia\u00a0and\u00a0encephalitis\u00a0(severe swelling of the brain). Delays in vaccine shipments and repeated postponements of a reactive vaccination campaign are leaving children unprotected while the outbreak continues to expand.\u00a0<\/p>\n
More than 29 per cent of cases in Zalingei and 34 per cent in Nyala were in children over five years old, highlighting the longstanding failure to ensure routine immunization in the region, even before the escalation of the current conflict.\u00a0As a result, the response to these outbreaks should include children aged between six months and 15 years.\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/MSB257249_Medium.jpg\")
At the measles isolation ward in the MSF-supported El\u202fGeneina teaching hospital, mothers care for their sick children. Sudan, 2025. \u00a9 Natalia Romero Pe\u00f1uela\/MSF<\/p>\n
Insufficient vaccination campaigns<\/p>\n
Six months ago, in June, large-scale vaccination campaigns were carried out in the Jabel Marra region of Central Darfur. However, they did not extend to Zalingei, nor to South or West Darfur, where our teams are now witnessing the sharp rise in cases. At that time, MSF warned these campaigns would have only a short-term impact. While some efforts have been made to bring in vaccines and dry supplies, the need for a mass vaccination campaign as well as scale up of the routine vaccinations are urgently needed to stop the spread.<\/p>\n
Between November 2024 and May 2025, MSF teams carried out four vaccination campaigns in response to outbreaks:<\/p>\n
In November 2024, our teams vaccinated 9,600 children in northern Jebel Marra.<\/p>\n
In February 2025, MSF conducted a measles intervention in South Darfur\u2019s Jebel Marra, treating 5,909 patients and vaccinating 36,209 children against measles.<\/p>\n
Between December 2024 and May 2025, our teams vaccinated more than 79,000 children in Rokero, northern Jebel Marra. After the end of the campaign, there was a reduction in the number of measles cases by 96.5 per cent.<\/p>\n
In April, MSF teams vaccinated more than 54,000 children in Foro Baranga, West Darfur.<\/p>\n
MSF teams in Darfur are also treating patients with diphtheria, pertussis and other vaccine-preventable diseases. \u201cWhat is urgently needed now is for the Ministry of Health \u2014 with the support of health partners, including UNICEF \u2014 to resume routine immunization and ensure sufficient vaccine supplies,\u201d says Fadel. \u201cCountless lives could be saved, yet after more than two and a half years of war, the world continues to fail the people of Sudan.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is happening amid a challenging global landscape. In 2024, 59 countries reported large, disruptive measles outbreaks \u2014 nearly triple the number reported in 2021, which is the highest number since the beginning of the global COVID-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, deep funding cuts to the Global Measles and Rubella Laboratory Network (GMRLN) and country immunization programs are feared to widen immunity gaps and drive further outbreaks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As measles spreads throughout war-torn Darfur, health authorities must launch a vaccination campaign while UNICEF must urgently coordinate…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":356882,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[49,48,84,41623],"class_list":["post-356881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-health","tag-sudan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=356881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356881\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/356882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}