(1486) Assessment of Pediatric Critical Care Services in Sudan During the Ongoing Armed Conflict in 2023

Introduction: Sudan's health system is vulnerable to natural disasters, epidemics like COVID-19 and cholera, and human-made crises like armed conflicts. Child health faces a dual burden of communicable and non-communicable diseases. During armed conflicts, healthcare systems are severely disrupted, leading to significant challenges in providing adequate and timely pediatric critical care services. In this study, we aimed to assess the pediatric critical care services in Sudan during the ongoing war.

Methods: The study was conducted as a cross-sectional web-based survey from June to August 2023. PICU clinicians currently practicing in Sudan were included. Considering the limited resources such as internet connection and electricity in an ongoing war, a convenient sampling technique was adopted to recruit respondents.

Results: A total of 79 PICU practitioners responded to the e-survey. Over half of them 51.9% were aged 31 to 40 years old, with a female predominance of 79.7%. Of them, 74.7% were PICU physicians, while 22.8% were nurses. A majority of professionals 83.5% had training on PICU and only two were certified. 86.1% were displaced to other states while 81% of their former PICUs were damaged or closed. Top patient diagnosis categories included meningoencephalitis 58.2%, shock 45.6%, and respiratory infections 44.3%. Over 3 seriously ill children were seen per day by 60.8% of respondents. Whereas the mortality rate of more than 30% was documented by 64.6% of participants.

Conclusions: The current war damaged the fragile PICU services in Sudan. However, we can improve care with more training and PICU services focused in well-equipped large tertiary centers.