2023-04-26 15:40:36
A civil war and a pathogen on the loose, the scenario has everything of a disaster movie. Yet this is the very real fear of the WHO, after the capture of a laboratory in Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, by one of the fighting parties. “The team on the ground, along with our biohazard and biosecurity teams, are carrying out a thorough risk assessment,” said Dr Michael Ryan, WHO Health Emergencies Program Officer, at a press conference in Geneva.
“The technicians no longer have access to the laboratory, which means that the laboratory is no longer able to fulfill its normal diagnostic and referral function. We are also concerned that people occupying the laboratory could be accidentally exposed to the pathogens stored there,” said WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. The WHO is seeking more information and carrying out a risk assessment, he insisted.
Measles, cholera and Covid-19
On Tuesday, the WHO representative in Sudan, Dr. Nima Saeed Abid, warned of the “enormous biological risk” posed by the taking of this laboratory in the Sudanese capital, where clashes broke out in mid-April. The WHO, however, did not specify whether it was the army of General Abdell Fattah al-Burhane or the paramilitaries of General Mohamed Hamdane Daglo, who concluded a 72-hour truce under the aegis of the United States. United.
The WHO had also indicated that this laboratory contained samples of the pathogens of measles, cholera and poliomyelitis. Dr Olivier le Poulain, one of the leaders of the WHO response to the Sudanese crisis, explained this Wednesday during the press conference that there were also samples of SARS-CoV-2 (pathogen responsible for Covid-19). -19) and tuberculosis, in particular multidrug-resistant tuberculosis.
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