At least 40 people have died in Sudan's Darfur region in the country's worst cholera outbreak in years, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said on Thursday.

The medical charity said the vast western region, which has been a major battleground over more than two years of fighting between the regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, had been hardest hit by the year-old outbreak.

"On top of an all-out war, people in Sudan are now experiencing the worst cholera outbreak the country has seen in years," MSF said in a statement.

"In the Darfur region alone, MSF teams treated over 2,300 patients and recorded 40 deaths in the past week."

The NGO said 2,470 cholera-related deaths had been reported in the year to August 11, out of 99,700 suspected cases.

Cholera is an acute intestinal

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