International charities warned that, left unchecked, the disease’s spread might exacerbate similar outbreaks across the African region for weeks or months to come.

An ongoing civil war in Sudan has forced millions of people to flee their homes and move to camps, where a lack of water and sanitation infrastructure, along with heavy rains, are fueling a massive cholera outbreak.

At least 40 people have died from cholera in Sudan’s Darfur region in what medical charity Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF, described as the country’s worst outbreak in years.