File photo : Displaced Sudanese, who fled the Zamzam camp, gather near the town of Tawila in North Darfur. AFP
The health ministry for Khartoum State said it had recorded 942 new infections and 25 deaths on Wednesday, following 1,177 cases and 45 deaths on Tuesday.
In overall toll, the ministry reported on Tuesday more than 2,700 cholera infections and 172 deaths in just seven days across six states, with 90 percent of cases concentrated in Khartoum state.
Cholera is endemic to Sudan, but outbreaks have become worse and more frequent since the war broke out, wrecking already fragile water, sanitation and health infrastructure.
Sudan's doctors' union said actual figures were far higher than those reported by the ministry, with hundreds dead in the capital alone.
In a statement, it warned there was a "severe shortage of intravenous solutions, a lack of clean water sources and a near-total absence of sterilisation equipment and disinfectants" in the city's hospitals.
Lying on hospital floors
With electricity supply and subsequently the local water network out of service, the people of Khartoum have been forced to turn to unsafe water sources, according to Doctors Without Borders (MSF).
"Water treatment stations no longer have electricity and cannot provide clean water from the Nile," Slaymen Ammar, MSF's medical coordinator in Khartoum, said in a statement.
People in Omdurman, part of greater Khartoum, say they have had no electricity for nearly two weeks.
"We now fetch water directly from the Nile, buying it from donkey carts that bring it in barrels," resident Bashir Mohamed said.
According to a doctor at Omdurman's Al-Nao hospital, the capital's main functioning health facility, residents have resorted to "drinking untreated Nile water, after the shutdown of water pumping stations".
He said this "is the main reason for the rapid spread" of cholera.
Medics in the already overwhelmed hospital are struggling to keep pace with the outbreak, and the local emergency response room (ERR) has issued a call for more volunteers.
"The number of patients exceeds the hospital's capacity," a member of the ERR told AFP, requesting anonymity for safety reasons.
"There is not enough medical staff. Some patients are lying on the floors in hospital corridors," he said.
Cholera, an acute diarrhoeal illness caused by ingesting contaminated water or food, can kill within hours if untreated.
It is easily preventable and treatable when clean water, sanitation and timely medical care are available.
Sudan's already fragile healthcare system has been pushed to "breaking point" by the war, according to the World Health Organization.
Up to 90 percent of the country's hospitals have at some point been forced to close because of the fighting, according to the doctors' union, with health facilities regularly stormed, bombed and looted.
The war, now in its third year, has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced 13 million and created the world's largest displacement and hunger crisis.
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