CAIRO: The world’s only research center on mycetoma, a neglected tropical disease common among farmers, has been destroyed in Sudan’s two-year war, its director and another expert say.
Mycetoma is caused by bacteria or fungus and usually enters the body through cuts. It is a progressively destructive infectious disease of the body tissue, affecting skin, muscle and even bone.
It is often characterised by swollen feet, but can also cause barnacle-like growths and club-like hands.
“The center and all its infrastructure were destroyed during the war in Sudan,” Ahmed Fahal, director of the Mycetoma Research Center (MRC), told AFP.
“We lost the entire contents of our biological banks, where there was data from more than 40 years,” said Fahal, whose center had treated thousands of patients from Sudan and other countries.
“It’s difficult to bear.”
Since April 15, 2023, Sudan’s army has been at war with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces throughout the northeast African country.
The MRC is located in the Khartoum area, which the army last month reclaimed from the RSF during a war that has killed tens of thousands of people and uprooted more than 12 million.
Sudan’s health care system has been left at the “breaking point,” according to the World Health Organization.
Among the conflict’s casualties is now the MRC, established in 1991 under the auspices of the University of Khartoum. It was a rare story of medical success in impoverished Sudan.
A video provided by the global Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) shows collapsed ceilings, shelves overturned, fridges open and documents scattered about.
AFP was not able to independently verify the MRC’s current condition.
The center had grown to include 50 researchers and treat 12,000 patients each year, Fahal said.
Mycetoma is listed as a neglected tropical disease by the WHO.
The organisms that cause mycetoma also occur in Sudan’s neighbors, including Chad and Ethiopia, as well as in other tropical and sub-tropical areas, among them Mexico and Thailand, WHO says.
For herders, farmers and other workers depending on manual labor to survive, crippling mycetoma infections can be a life sentence.
Drawing on the MRC’s expertise, in 2019 the WHO and Sudan’s government convened the First International Training Workshop on Mycetoma, in Khartoum.
“Today, Sudan, which was at the forefront of awareness of mycetomas, has gone 100 percent backwards,” said Dr. Borna Nyaoke-Anoke, DNDi’s head of mycetoma.

EL AMRA: Tunisian authorities on Thursday set fire to tents housing sub-Saharan African migrants, an AFP correspondent said, in a new drive to clear their informal camps.
Many migrants arrived in Tunisia after crossing the deserts of Algeria and Mali, hoping to reach Italy. But tighter controls on the sea route have left them stranded.
For nearly two years, olive groves around El Amra, a town near the city of Sfax, served as informal camps for thousands of the migrants but on April 4 authorities began dismantling the camps.
Around 3,300 more migrants had to leave the olive groves on Thursday, said Houcem Eddine Jebabli, spokesman for the National Guard, which said around 4,000 had left in the earlier operation.
“It’s the strategy of the State that Tunisia not be a place of settlement or transit for illegal migrants. Tunisia is coordinating with the countries of departure, of welcome as well as the international NGOs to ensure voluntary repatriation,” Jebabli told reporters.
The makeshift shelters located a few kilometers from Tunisia’s Mediterranean coast have grown as a source of tension. Local residents complain about the camps and demand that the land be cleared.
Last year, Tunisia signed a 255-million-euro ($290-million) deal with the European Union, nearly half of which is earmarked for tackling irregular migration.
Tunisian President Kais Saied on March 25 called on the United Nations International Organization for Migration (IOM) to accelerate voluntary returns for irregular migrants to their home countries.
Among those told to leave the camps on Thursday was a Guinean, known as Mac, who has been in Tunisia for two years.
“It’s very hard here,” he said.
Like many migrants, he has registered with IOM to return to his homeland.
The IOM said Thursday it had facilitated the voluntary return of more than 2,300 migrants from Tunisia, after nearly 7,000 throughout 2024, which was well above the combined total for 2023 and 2022.