Sudan: A Humanitarian Response to a Silent Genocide: An American Nurse's Perspective

Each April sees the start of the annual "hungry season" when available food is insufficient to meet the needs of the population. Since the fall of 2003, this "hungry season" has been compounded by forced displacement and destruction of crops, water sources, and animals. In July and August we saw an alarming development in the incidence of acute jaundice cases throughout Darfur and in our own clinics. Because acute jaundice, hepatitis E in this case, develops 6 to 8 weeks after exposure, we actively attempted to track the whereabouts of these patients at the time of infection.