Food, Medicine and Impossible Choices Facing Sudan’s Chronically Ill

Treatment disrupted by displacement

Hasanat al-Rashid, 48, has lived with diabetes for 15 years. The three-and-a-half-year war between Sudan’s military and the Rapid Support Forces has made getting treatment a daily struggle.

While displaced, she went days without medication and had to eat foods unsuitable for her condition, including asida, a traditional Sudanese porridge. She sought care in Rufaa, Wad Madani and Al-Hasahisa in Gezira State, then fled again when fighting spread there in December 2023, reaching Port Sudan.

Her doctor recommended an insulin pen, but one or two devices a month would cost 70,000 Sudanese pounds ($8), more than she can pay upfront. She instead uses insulin from a vial, which she struggles to store without a refrigerator.

Families ration vital medicines

Hasanat was admitted to hospital with complications from high blood pressure that had begun to affect her heart. Her daughter, Aisha, said her mother takes six medicines, including treatment for hypertension and thyroid problems, and that rising prices have strained the family.

“Sometimes, when my brother finds work, we buy enough medicine to last a month,” Aisha told Al Jazeera. At other times, the family buys smaller quantities and takes the medicines intermittently.

Huda Mahmoud, 58, of el-Obeid, said she takes five medicines. When they were unavailable, she asked people in Wad Madani, Sennar or Port Sudan to send them; at one point, her monthly medicines cost 300,000 Sudanese pounds ($33.30).

Shortages and currency pressures

Mahmoud has returned to el-Obeid, where her regular medicines now cost 151,000 Sudanese pounds ($16.80) a month, a sum she can barely afford. She said missing a pill can make her heart beat very fast and worries that she may become incapacitated.

The National Medicines and Poisons Board said eight of the 30 pharmaceutical factories in Khartoum that closed during the conflict have resumed operations, despite a recent improvement in security in the capital. The currency’s collapse has added costs for pharmacies. Before the war, a dollar traded for about 600 Sudanese pounds; black-market traders now quote 9,300 pounds to the dollar. Pharmacist Hossam al-Naeem said a strip of cold and flu tablets that he sells for 6,000 pounds costs the same amount to restock, leaving nothing to cover pharmacy operating costs.