Sudan cholera rate rising at 'alarming' rate, says UN

The number of reported cholera cases is increasing in Darfur and more than 3000 people across all of Sudan have died from the illness over the last 14 months of civil war, the UN health agency said.

The current outbreak of the bacterial infection caused by contaminated food or water has spread to all 18 states in the war-torn country after erupting in Kassala in July last year, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said.

Hala Khudari, its deputy representative in Sudan, said the WHO has launched a vaccination campaign targeting 406,000 people in the state of North Darfur that comes "as cholera cases in Darfur continue to rise at an alarming rate - at an alarming fatality rate, to be specific".

As of Sunday, some 12,739 cases and 358 deaths have been reported in more than half of Darfur lo