GEORGE Clooney is battling the potentially fatal tropical disease malaria, it was revealed yesterday.
The 49-year-old star contracted the illness in Sudan, Africa.

He was there in December working on a project with the United Nations and Google to help to stave off a new civil war.

Ahead of an interview on Piers Morgan’s new CNN TV show, due to be aired tonight, Morgan wrote on his Twitter page: ‘George Clooney has contracted malaria following recent trip to Sudan. Taking medication but feeling rough.’ 

The actor visited Sudan before a referendum on separation of the largely Muslim Arab north and the predominantly black Christian south.

He said at the time: ‘We want to let potential perpetrators of genocide and other war crimes know that we’re watching, the world is watching.’

Clooney has spent a number of years trying to raise awareness about alleged genocide and other reported widespread human rights violations committed by Muslim militias in the Sudanese region of Darfur.

X Factor star, Cheryl Cole, was hospitalised in July after getting the disease during a holiday to Tanzania with close friend Derek Hough.

Miss Cole subsequently revealed that she wrote a will after doctors told her she was on the brink of death.
She said: ‘I thought I was going to die, I actually thought I was going to die. I thought if I’m going to die I want to die soon because I was in so much pain.’

AP