The United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund said Friday that over 1 million polio vaccines for children have been looted in Sudan during the upsurge in violence since April, according to an email from Hazel De Wet, deputy director of UNICEF's Office of Emergency Programmes.

A World Health Organization (WHO) database shows there have been 28 attacks on health care facilities in Sudan since the conflict erupted last month, pitting Sudan's army against the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.

The agency was in the middle of a series of polio vaccination campaigns in Sudan following an outbreak at the end of 2022.

The polio virus, which primarily affects children under the age of 5, can cause paralysis and even death. Although Malawi, Mozambique and Sudan have reported imported cases since last year, Africa was declared free of wild polio in 2020.

Several humanitarian organizations, including the World Food Programme, which claimed to have lost supplies valued at $13 to $14 million, have reported looting during the Sudan crisis.