Accompanied by Jordan’s Prince Ghazi bin Mohammad, Prince Charles and his wife paid an hour-long visit to the Prince Abdullah Park, where they toured the camp’s health clinic and aid distribution points, and examined pre-fabricated shelters provided by UNHCR to Syrian refugees.

The heir to the British throne praised the relief efforts and expressed “enormous respect for what Jordan and the humanitarian community have done for refugees … The Jordanian people are truly remarkable in what they manage to cope with.”

“It’s remarkable what UNHCR and others are doing to try and deal with this unbelievably difficult and heart-breaking situation,” he added.

In a conversation with one of the families taking refuge in the camp, 55-year-old Musa told the royal couple that he decided to flee Syria with his wife and five children last September after he was arrested and tortured.

Also on Wednesday in Jordan, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, António Guterres, called for additional financial aid, warning that a lack of funding could destabilize the entire region.

“This is not just any crisis. It requires a special mechanism of support,” Mr. Guterres told journalists in Amman, following meetings with Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour and Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh.

“There is no way this can be funded by normal humanitarian aid budgets,” he noted, warning that “the consequences could be devastating for the Syrian people and for regional stability” if significant new funding was not forthcoming.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has said the $521 million Syrian Humanitarian Assistance Response Plan was at least 21.5 per cent funded, which includes $200 million pledged at the January donor conference in Kuwait.

Syria has been wracked by violence since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began in March 2011. Up to 70,000 people have died, more than 1 million have fled to neighbouring countries, and 2 million have been internally displaced.

The largest number of cases and suspected cases, almost 70 per cent, is in the Yusuf Batil camp in Upper Nile state which holds 37,229 refugees, according to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Other camps in Upper Nile state – Jamam, Gendrassa and Doro – have recorded nearly 2,000 cases and 30 deaths. Further west, in Unity state, 125 cases or suspected cases and four deaths have been recorded at the Yida site, which, with a population of 65,541 people, holds the largest number of refugees in South Sudan.

“The majority of refugees in camps where the disease is most widespread are from Blue Nile state, an isolated rural area in Sudan where there are few established toilet facilities and uncontaminated water is not readily available,” said UNHCR spokesperson Adrian Edwards.

“UNHCR believes the growth in the population due to the refugee influx from Blue Nile could be one of the factors in the rapid spread of the disease,” he told reporters in Geneva.

The risk of being infected with Hepatitis E – for which there is no treatment or vaccine approved by the World Health Organization (WHO) – can be dramatically reduced by washing hands with soap, especially after using the toilet, drinking clean water, using latrines, and avoiding eating uncooked fruits and vegetables. Hepatitis E is a virus that damages the liver, and is transmitted by consuming contaminated food or water.

UNHCR said emergency measures are being taken to curb the increase, with about 70 per cent of the 701 latrines under construction in Yusuf Batil completed and the remainder expected to be operating by this weekend. In the Doro Camp region, 65 per cent of the 323 latrines being built in the most affected areas around the Jumjum and Ingasana villages have been completed so far. Soap distributions are also being carried out, in addition to enhanced disease surveillance and water chlorination.

There are currently 112,981 Sudanese refugees in South Sudan’s Upper Nile and Unity states, according to UNHCR.