Medical sources at Wad Madani City hospital in El Gezira state, have reported 19 deaths due to haemorrhagic fever over the past two weeks.

Speaking to Radio Dabanga, the source said that about 11 infected people have been quarantined in the hospital.

The health authorities have been keeping a tight lid on the outbreak and on Monday the State Ministry of Health issued instructions to the departments of rural hospitals to transfer all patients suffering any bleeding to hospitals in Wad Madani, Kamleen and Hassahiya.

Sources say the Federal Ministry of Health instructed the state health authorities not to talk about these fevers in order to preserve the country's exports of livestock. Doctors do not rule out the possibility that the infection of patients was caused by eating meat. The sources pointed out that on Monday the Ministry of health of the El Gezira instructed the rural hospitals to notify the Ministry of any new cases of the disease and transfer any patient suffering from bleeding to major hospitals in the state.

File photo by Albert González Farran / Unamid