Sudan: Measles cases surge in Darfur despite months calling for vaccination
As measles spreads throughout war-torn Darfur, health authorities must launch a vaccination campaign while UNICEF must urgently coordinate efforts to deliver vaccines and other supplies.
Measles cases are rising rapidly across Sudan’s Central, South and West Darfur states, in the absence of an urgent and effective vaccination campaign.
More than 1,300 cases have been recorded in health facilities supported by Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) since September, despite our repeated advocacy for vaccination campaigns and the resumption of routine immunization programs.
We urge authorities to immediately eliminate all bureaucratic and administrative barriers to transporting vaccines throughout Darfur. At the same time, there must be greater urgency from UNICEF to coordinate efforts to increase the transport and delivery of vaccines, syringes and the necessary supplies. We also call on both the State and Federal Ministries of Health to launch an urgent measles vaccination campaign and a routine immunization program.
“Measles is a preventable disease; it requires only routine immunization and timely reactive vaccination,” says Ahmed Fadel, MSF emergency coordinator in Darfur. “But due to conflict, administrative barriers and delays by key agencies, both have been severely limited. These delays are leaving children exposed to a disease that is also deadly.”
“What is urgently needed now is for the Ministry of Health — with the support of health partners, including UNICEF — to resume routine immunization and ensure sufficient vaccine supplies. Countless lives could be saved, yet after more than two and a half years of war, the world continues to fail the people of Sudan.”
Ahmed Fadel, MSF emergency coordinator in Darfur
Ferdos Salih brought Banan, her 11-month-old baby who has measles and severe acute malnutrition, to the MSF-supported El Geneina teaching hospital in West Darfur.
“She was born prematurely because the war forced us to flee from Omdurman while I was pregnant,” says Ferdos. “She has suffered a lot with repeated hospitalization. Also because of the war, she couldn’t get vaccinated.”
Since being displaced, Ferdos and Banan live with two other families. Banan caught measles from her older brother, because there was not enough space in the house to isolate him properly when he first got sick.
Conflict makes vaccine shipment almost impossible
Shipping vaccines for reactive campaigns and immunization programs ix extremely challenging because of the operational environment in Sudan. Ongoing conflict has disrupted import routes and created significant administrative and bureaucratic hurdles for humanitarian actors involved in vaccination efforts. This includes delays linked to authorizations for cross-border shipments and procedures required by Sudanese authorities.
At the same time, the delivery of vaccines and other supplies necessary to carry out vaccinations are not coordinated sufficiently, arriving at different locations and times. This creates another hurdle to overcome before vaccinations can start.
“This is the main cause of delays,” says Fadel. “The supply of vaccines and related supplies must be better coordinated so that both arrive to where they are needed much more quickly.”
Hospitals treat growing numbers of measles and malnutrition patients
At Zalingei hospital in Central Darfur, our teams have treated 1,093 measles patients in 2025. We’ve seen a sharp increase in recent months – 78% of the year’s cases have been recorded since September. In Nyala teaching hospital in South Darfur, teams treated 242 measles patients this year, 95% of them since September. Meanwhile, El Geneina teaching hospital in West Darfur received 429 measles cases in 2025, with 59% reported between September and November.
Matara Abakar brought her 10-month-old son, Natrin, to Zalingei hospital in Central Darfur after he had been sick for 17 days with a fever, diarrhea, cough and skin rash. He is also severely malnourished.
“We are struggling to find jobs,” says Matara. “I’m a farmer and it’s hard to earn enough money to buy proper food. We depend only on asida [a Sudanese food made with sorghum or millet flours].” She has two more children who are not fully vaccinated either.
More than 34 per cent of patients in Zalingei and Nyala are acutely malnourished, which increases the severity of measles and rapidly leads to life-threatening complications, including pneumonia and encephalitis (severe swelling of the brain). Delays in vaccine shipments and repeated postponements of a reactive vaccination campaign are leaving children unprotected while the outbreak continues to expand.
More than 29 per cent of cases in Zalingei and 34 per cent in Nyala were in children over five years old, highlighting the longstanding failure to ensure routine immunization in the region, even before the escalation of the current conflict. As a result, the response to these outbreaks should include children aged between six months and 15 years.
Insufficient vaccination campaigns
Six months ago, in June, large-scale vaccination campaigns were carried out in the Jabel Marra region of Central Darfur. However, they did not extend to Zalingei, nor to South or West Darfur, where our teams are now witnessing the sharp rise in cases. At that time, MSF warned these campaigns would have only a short-term impact. While some efforts have been made to bring in vaccines and dry supplies, the need for a mass vaccination campaign as well as scale up of the routine vaccinations are urgently needed to stop the spread.
Between November 2024 and May 2025, MSF teams carried out four vaccination campaigns in response to outbreaks:
- In November 2024, our teams vaccinated 9,600 children in northern Jebel Marra.
- In February 2025, MSF conducted a measles intervention in South Darfur’s Jebel Marra, treating 5,909 patients and vaccinating 36,209 children against measles.
- Between December 2024 and May 2025, our teams vaccinated more than 79,000 children in Rokero, northern Jebel Marra. After the end of the campaign, there was a reduction in the number of measles cases by 96.5 per cent.
- In April, MSF teams vaccinated more than 54,000 children in Foro Baranga, West Darfur.
MSF teams in Darfur are also treating patients with diphtheria, pertussis and other vaccine-preventable diseases. “What is urgently needed now is for the Ministry of Health — with the support of health partners, including UNICEF — to resume routine immunization and ensure sufficient vaccine supplies,” says Fadel. “Countless lives could be saved, yet after more than two and a half years of war, the world continues to fail the people of Sudan.”
This is happening amid a challenging global landscape. In 2024, 59 countries reported large, disruptive measles outbreaks — nearly triple the number reported in 2021, which is the highest number since the beginning of the global COVID-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, deep funding cuts to the Global Measles and Rubella Laboratory Network (GMRLN) and country immunization programs are feared to widen immunity gaps and drive further outbreaks.
