Sudan: Supporting People With Essential Health Care in Crisis
Conflict in Sudan has resulted in millions of people being displaced from their homes. An estimated 80% of hospitals in conflict-affected areas in the country are unable to treat patients and medical supplies are depleted nationwide. Lack of access to food and malnutrition – a key driver of disease – is impacting millions of people. As of August 2024, famine has officially been declared in the Darfur region of Sudan.
At the same time, Sudan has been grappling with the health impacts of climate change. Considered one of the world’s highly climate-sensitive countries, drought and increasingly unpredictable levels of rainfall have fueled mass migration, displacing people within Sudan and across borders in search of more habitable land and reliable sources of clean drinking water.
In response to these colliding crises, the Global Fund has invested in strengthening health systems and fighting HIV, tuberculosis (TB) and malaria within Sudan and in neighboring countries.
Within Sudan, this includes US$170 million in new grant agreements to distribute insecticide-treated mosquito nets and deliver essential medicines to maintain HIV and TB treatment for displaced people. An additional US$20 million investment through the Global Fund’s COVID-19 Response Mechanism is being used to safeguard and strengthen the country’s health systems, including strengthening medical oxygen and supply chains, supporting mobile health clinics, and providing essential resources for community health workers and community-based organizations so they can reach more people with lifesaving care.
In countries that border Sudan, Global Fund partners are working together to provide tools to prevent and treat HIV, TB and malaria. For example, in 2023, the Global Fund and the United Nations Development Programme delivered 100,000 mosquito nets for refugee communities in Eastern Chad alone.
The Global Fund has disbursed more than US$15 billion to countries impacted by humanitarian crises, also called challenging operating environments, since 2002 and remains committed to supporting health systems and partners to deliver care in the face of multifaceted crises that fuel disease.
To end HIV, TB and malaria, we need to overcome challenges to reach the most vulnerable people with prevention and treatment services – wherever they are.