Polio Outbreak
Polio
How the score is calculated
The score starts at 8. It adds points from recorded affected, deaths, displaced and casualty counts, plus terms found in the story title, event type or status. For each count, only its highest matching band is used.
- Affected people
- 1–999: +5 · 1,000–9,999: +12 · 10,000–99,999: +20 · 100,000–999,999: +28 · 1 million+: +35
- Deaths
- 1–9: +8 · 10–99: +14 · 100–999: +22 · 1,000+: +30
- Displaced people
- 1–9,999: +6 · 10,000–99,999: +12 · 100,000+: +18
- Casualties
- 100 or more: +8
- Story wording
- +10 for terms such as catastrophe, famine, war, conflict, major earthquake, mass casualty or critical. Otherwise, +5 for active, ongoing, emergency, outbreak, cyclone or hurricane.
Score bands: Watch 0–24 · Moderate 25–49 · High 50–74 · Critical 75–100. Scores are capped at 100. Missing or unparseable figures add no points.
This is a rule-based WorldsAid triage indicator, not an official or independently validated classification. It does not account for recency or local context, and it can understate events with incomplete reporting. Check the linked sources.
Historical record
Status: CLOSED · Imported 2026-10-07
Closed for this historical import at the site owner’s request; not a new assessment of current conditions.
In brief
- What happenedThe Federal Ministry of Health (FMoH) declared, on 9 August, an outbreak of polio in Sudan, following the confirmation of two cases of vaccine-derived poliovirus in South Darfur and Gedaref states.
- How many affectedAffected persons: 52,000
- What help is neededResponse priorities should be confirmed in the linked source reports as needs change.
What changed
First retained snapshot
No earlier verified snapshot is present in the recovered dataset. This record remains available as the historical baseline.
Situation
The Federal Ministry of Health (FMoH) declared, on 9 August, an outbreak of polio in Sudan, following the confirmation of two cases of vaccine-derived poliovirus in South Darfur and Gedaref states. While laboratory tests are still ongoing, positive environmental samples of poliovirus type 2 have also been found in seven more states, including West Darfur, East Darfur, Gezira, White Nile, River Nile, Khartoum and Red Sea, indicating a possible wide circulation of the virus within the country. At least 5.2 million children under age 5 live in the affected states and will require urgent vaccination. The outbreak, the first since March 2009, has been considered by the authorities as a national emergency and response has been activated to tackle the high risk of transmissions within and beyond Sudan, including South Sudan, declared by WHO as polio-free just a month ago. Neighbouring Ethiopia, Central African Republic and Chad also reported cases, which puts more risks on Sudan, especially in the Darfur region, due to border movements. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and current floods in Sudan will likely increase the challenges for Government and humanitarian partners to contain the new outbreak. The FMoH and health partners have already activated the urgent response to the outbreak. The FMoH briefed the Cabinet of Ministers on 8 August and declared the outbreak one day later, following the protocols of the International Health Regulations. Risk assessments have already been completed, while a National Task Force committee is being currently established. Government and health partners, led by WHO, are in close contact with neighbouring countries to coordinate efforts. ( OCHA, 14 Aug 2020 )
Linked charities and agencies
WorldsAid verification
A WorldsAid editor reviewed this record against 1 attributed source, cleaned feed formatting and checked the crisis, place and reporting date. 1 human-impact figure was separated from the narrative and dated where the source allowed. Earlier observations remain in the evidence history instead of being silently overwritten.
Verified figures
- Affected persons
- 52,000 retained at 2020-09-09
What we knew when
- WorldsAid record entered the retained historical dataset.
- Last verification represented by this immutable snapshot.
Earlier figures are never replaced by later values; additional observations are retained as new ledger entries.
Provenance
This page renders the last verified WorldsAid cache directly in HTML. It does not treat generated summaries as primary evidence.
Cached dataset: worldsai_drup771.sql.gz
Verified
SHA-256 8584afce6e7dd85018c0e57584e6858e4fef2846ecb2fca918ae06c9063d6211