Via Radio Tamazuj: 650 cholera cases in Upper Nile; food barges delayed. Excerpt:
More than 650 people have caught the disease cholera in Upper Nile State of South Sudan, with 17 deaths confirmed. The state remains cut off by river and road from relief supplies from elsewhere in the country, and is only accessible by air.
Approximately 179,000 people are displaced within Upper Nile State, according to the UN, while tens of thousands more have fled from the state into Ethiopia or Sudan.
In an update on Friday, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in South Sudan stated that the cholera outbreak in Wau Shilluk in Upper Nile resulted in a cumulative number of 652 cases so far, with 17 deaths.
Currently 207 patients are still undergoing treatment at Wau Shilluk, while the others have been discharged. There are also unconfirmed reports of cholera cases elsewhere in the state.
OCHA pointed out that “airdrops remained the only way of delivering supplies to Upper Nile State sites.” Food barges hired by the World Food Programme to travel upriver to the area from Juba have been delayed.
According to the UN Logistics Cluster, two barges that departed Juba on 29 June have halted in Mangella while another two are still at Juba port awaiting repair of the pusher’s engine.
OCHA said aid agencies are responding to cholera in Wau Shilluk by providing medical treatment, distributing water purification and rehydration tablets, buckets and soap, and constructing handwashing stations.
OCHA also says that food for some 40,000 people was distributed in Wau Shilluk. In Mandeng, also in Upper Nile State, aid workers launched a food distribution and health operations for some 2,000 people.
