‘High biohazard risk’ as Sudan forces seize lab where pathogens stored
- The WHO warned that technicians had been ejected from the national health facility, but did not say which of the two warring sides had captured it
- The UN agency has reported 14 attacks on health facilities and is relocating staff to safety
Fighting in Sudan eased on Tuesday and more foreigners and locals fled the capital Khartoum, where marauding combatants created what a UN agency said was a “high risk of biological hazard” by seizing a laboratory.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said one of the warring parties had taken control of a national health facility that stores measles and cholera pathogens for vaccinations, and ejected the technicians.
It gave few details and did not say which of the two sides – the army or the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF)- had captured the lab, which also contains a major blood bank.
“There is high risk of biological hazards because in that lab we have already isolates, we have measles isolates as well as cholera isolates,” the WHO’s Nima Saeed Abid said, speaking to reporters in Geneva via video link from Sudan.
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