Deadly grasshoppers sweep Sudan
Swarms of grasshoppers are attacking farm-rich central Sudan, triggering an asthma epidemic that has killed five people.
This is reported as the worst plague there in three decades.
An independent Sudanese daily said authorities in Gezira State had declared a state of emergency in the hospitals of Wad Medani city to contain the epidemic that broke out when the swarms arrived last Wednesday.
Five people have died among 600 reported cases of asthma in Wad Medani, about 180km southeast of Khartoum.
Presumably, the grasshoppers produced huge clouds of dust.
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Officials say it will take two weeks |
While aerial spraying has begun, a team from the capital is expected in Wad Medani later on Monday to assess the situation and take measures to cope with it, Gezira Health Minister Sadiq al-Wakeel was quoted as saying.
He told the daily that it would “take at least two weeks to contain the situation in spite of the ongoing aerial and manual spraying operations.”
Grasshoppers were threatening crops of peanuts, sorghum, wheat and cotton throughout Gezira which has the richest farmland in Sudan.