Continuity of Essential Health Services in Sudan During Armed Conflict: Lessons for Medicines Access, Community Health, and Global Health Cooperation

Background: Armed conflict in Sudan has disrupted medicine supply chains, primary healthcare services, and continuity of care for chronic illnesses. Understanding these interconnected vulnerabilities is essential for planning resilient health-service delivery. Objective: To critically appraise evidence on medicines access, primary-care readiness, and chronic-disease follow-up during the Sudan conflict, and identify priorities for sustaining essential healthcare services through local adaptation and coordinated health-system support. Evidence approach: This poster presents a targeted, evidence-informed narrative synthesis of three published Sudanese observational studies alongside WHO and Health Cluster situation reports and operational data. Evidence is interpreted according to its source, study population, measurement, and limitations. No new primary data were collected, and no pooled effect estimates or causal analyses were undertaken. Findings: A survey of 118 pharmacies reported disrupted medicine access in 95.8% and price increases in 98.3%. An assessment of 50 primary healthcare centres reported availability indices of 63.6% for equipment, 54.4% for essential medicines, and 48.0% for vaccines. Among 608 patients with diabetes and/or hypertension, 78.6% reported missed follow-up and 79.0% reported worsened disease control. WHO reported that 37% of health facilities were non-functional in 2026 and documented 228 attacks on healthcare since April 2023, as of 12 October 2026. Separately, a WHO-supported programme delivered free essential healthcare through 60 primary-care centres, reaching 570,299 beneficiaries during June–December 2025. Interpretation: These sources identify complementary but methodologically distinct vulnerabilities affecting pharmaceutical access, frontline service readiness, and chronic-disease continuity. The operational programme demonstrates service reach, but does not independently establish comparative effectiveness. Conclusion: Protecting essential healthcare continuity during prolonged conflict requires reliable medicine supply, functioning primary-care services, referral systems, sustained chronic-disease follow-up, and coordinated support for locally responsive delivery. Proposed strategies require prospective evaluation.