Prior to their current civil wars, the African nations of Sudan and South Sudan had “eliminated maternal and neonatal tetanus, an infection that can kill newborns within days without proper care. Note that Sudan’s validation relies on data collected before its civil war began, so it is uncertain how that achievement is holding up,” reports The Doomslayer.
Forbes notes that “Neonatal tetanus, a silent but preventable killer, claims the lives of newborns within their first days of life, particularly in settings with unsafe delivery practices and poor umbilical cord care. Through successful vaccination campaigns, both South Sudan and Sudan have achieved Maternal and Neonatal Tetanus Elimination (MNTE), a significant public health milestone.”
Unlike some other diseases, tetanus cannot be eradicated without vaccination. “It’s not passed from person to person, but through exposure to Clostridium tetani, a common bacterium that exists in the environment in soil and animal feces worldwide. Neonatal tetanus claims the lives of newborns within their first days of life, particularly in settings with unsafe delivery practices and poor cord care. Through immunization and the promotion of more hygienic deliveries and cord care practices, MNT can be eliminated when there is an annual rate of less than one case of neonatal tetanus per 1,000 live births at the district level.”
This progress will likely be lost by the civil wars that recently resumed in both Sudan and South Sudan. In 2026, South Sudan slipped back into civil war. The Lankien hospital in South Sudan was recently bombed, burned and looted as the conflict spread. An earlier civil war in South Sudan killed at least 400,000 people between 2013 and 2018. South Sudan has been plagued by civil war for much of its existence. It is one of the most economically backward places on Earth.
Neighboring Sudan has also been in a civil war, since 2023. In its current civil war, at least 400,000 people have died, and most of the country’s major hospitals were looted by a militia known as the Rapid Support Forces. Healthcare facilities have routinely been attacked by drones in Sudan’s civil war. The RSF is responsible for two thirds of documented attacks on healthcare facilities, leading to the closure of roughly 90% of Sudan’s hospitals at various points during the war. The RSF even looted a hospital in the Darfur region it controls.
Vaccines save countless lives in Africa. “Measles vaccination has saved 94 million lives globally since 1974. Of those, 92 million were children”, says Our World in Data.
Millions of people in Sudan lost power last year due to drone strikes on a key power plant.
The Rapid Support Forces committed genocide against the Masalit people of western Sudan. And they slaughtered tens of thousands of the Zaghawa people, after seizing the major city of El Fasher, again. The RSF also has kidnapped thousands of people and held them for ransom, torturing many of them. The RSF has killed at least 250,000 people from non-Arab ethnic groups in Sudan’s western Darfur region.
