South Sudan

Over twenty years of war in South Sudan came to an end by the signing of a peace agreement on 9th Jan 2005 and was followed by the installation of a formal government for South Sudan which will govern the geographical southern part of Sudan. The newly formed MoH, installed in October 2005, has yet to fully establish itself and faces the challenge of establishing health policies and services almost from scratch. TB control in South Sudan, after years of total collapse, re-started with treatment of individual cases by some NGO ’s in the early 1990 ’s. Today, case detection and treatment in South Sudan still relies entirely on the work of NGOs with technical assistance by WHO. Coordination and monitoring of TB activities is done by WHO as a joint effort with South Sudan MoH.

In 2004, the South Sudan NTP reported a total of 2539 cases, of which 1064 were smear positive. However, even with the most conservative estimates of incidence (200/100,000 for all TB cases and 100/100,000 for SM+ cases) and the lowest population estimates (7 million people), these figures correspond to a case detection rate of only 15% for SM+ cases. Despite low case detection rates and low coverage, outcomes of treatment are very promising, with reasonable cure rates and default rates that in most cases remain below 5-10%. Prevalence of HIV is believed to be relatively low in most areas, but has reached endemic levels of over 1% (up to 8% in some places) and has a potential for rapid increase in the coming years.

TB CAP Project Period (2005-2010)

Expected output(s)

1. DOTS program is in place in South Sudan.