Sudan has achieved Maternal and Neonatal Tetanus Elimination (MNTE), validated through a rigorous World Health Organization-led process. Date: March 5, 2026 (UNICEF Sudan report). The assessment confirmed that all 188 districts met the criteria for elimination, showing that the risk of neonatal tetanus has been reduced to extremely low levels nationwide.

The result rests on strong maternal health work. In 2022, 183 of Sudan’s 188 districts surpassed the WHO threshold of 70 percent clean delivery coverage. Between 2016 and 2019, Sudan also ran targeted tetanus vaccination campaigns across 78 high-risk districts, reaching more than 3.5 million women of reproductive age.

Because insecurity made standard field surveys unsafe, the validation used an adapted WHO-approved approach designed for fragile and conflict-affected settings. It relied on the most recent pre-conflict data, from 2022. The validation highlighted Sudan’s remarkable achievements despite conflict, displacement and health system disruptions.

Neonatal tetanus is a silent but preventable killer that claims newborns within their first days of life. Frontline health workers, midwives, vaccinators and community health staff were instrumental in securing the progress. It also fits a continental success story: as of May 2026, 34 of the 37 high-burden African countries have been validated for elimination.

Culled from UNICEF Sudan: https://www.unicef.org/sudan/stories/hope-amidst-conflict