The World Health Organization (WHO) has decided to probe the yet-to-be-identified mysterious disease that has killed at least 89 people in Fangak, in the South Sudan’s state of Jonglei, in an area recently hit by flooding.
WHO official Sheila Baya told the BBC that they’ve decided to send a rapid response team to go and do risk assessment and investigation after the local health officials have ruled out cholera as the cause.
The WHO team will travel by helicopter to the impacted area from the capital Juba, where they’ll collect samples from sick people. The number of deaths caused by the mysterious disease is provisional.
South Sudan’s minister of land, housing, and public utilities, Lam Tungwar Kueigwong, said that severe floods in Unity – the state bordering Jonglei- have boosted the spread of diseases like malaria and the food shortages it prompted have caused malnutrition in children.
On top of that, the water that was contaminated by the oil from the fields in the region had also led to the death of domesticated animals.
UNHCR, UN’s refugee agency, said in October that the floods caused by heavy rains that hit the poor African nation earlier in the year were the worst seen in the four affected states since 1962, affecting over 700.000 people.
It happens in a time when the people in the area are already facing the triple threat of conflict, hunger and the increasing global concerns over the Omicron strain of Covid-19, due to which some Western nations have imposed additional travel restrictions for several South African countries.
Despite the fact that South Sudan isn’t on the new list, it faces numerous other problems that stem from continued violence, the healthcare system’s underfunding and natural disaster, to name a few.
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