Health and Nutrition

Mother and daughter at a World Vision Sudan supported health facility

Our Goal

We want all children in Sudan to enjoy good health. We are working towards this by:

  • Increasing the number of children who are protected from disease
  • Increasing the number of children who are well nourished
  • Ensuring children and their caregivers have access to essential health services 
What is the problem?

Despite improvements in Sudan in the recent past, children are among the most vulnerable and are constantly at risk of disease outbreaks, such as Cholera, diarrhoea, malaria and respiratory infections, such as pneumonia. These risk factors are made more acute when you account for poor health and nutrition during pregnancy and their first years of life. These factors are exacerbated by low investment in the nascent health infrastructure; a lack of health and hygiene knowledge; inadequate access to sanitation facilities and human displacement.

How is World Vision addressing the issues?

We are working to meet the needs of children by focusing on where life starts, providing counselling and support to pregnant women. We do this primarily by providing outpatient services and responding to disease outbreaks. We are also trying to address the roots of the problem by supporting vaccination efforts and contributing the infrastructure updates and increased health personnel training.

Is what World Vision doing working?

All monitoring and survey data reveal that the status of internally displaced people in camps to be much better than that of host communities. Because the situation in Sudan has been so volatile, the priority has been to sustain status quo and prevent epidemics such as cholera from further deteriorating the health status of already vulnerable populations.

What was our impact in 2022?

Our interventions included providing free outpatient consultations for vulnerable populations living in internally displaced persons camps, refugee camps and host communities, conducting active case finding of malnutrition cases as well as mass screening, and providing nutrition care and treatment for children, pregnant and lactating women with malnutrition.

  • Over 41,000 children below five years old immunised against childhood diseases.
  • 20,711 mothers with newborns  received post-natal visits from either a community health worker or health worker during the first week after birth.
  • Over 139,000 free consultations at World Vision-run health facilities.
  • Approximately 80,457 people received nutrition care, including children under five who were admitted with malnutrition cases. 
  • World Vision supported 56 primary health care clinics in total across East Darfur, South Darfur, Blue Nile and South Kordofan, ensuring they were equipped with trained medical personnel, medicines, and medical equipment. 
Related Resources
  • Find out more about the child protection and education programming in Sudan from our Health and Nutrition capacity statement.
  • See what impact our five-year (FY21-25) strategy to reach vulnerable children with our health and nutritional programmes is making in Sudan in our strategy overview document. 
  • Watch this video to learn how World Vision is partnering with communities to address the threat of malnutrition. You can also read the written version of the story here. 
  • See how one clinic is improving the lives of thousands of internally displaced people in South Darfur state.