African Vaccination Week in Ethiopia marked a pivotal moment to advance the Big Catch-Up (BCU) initiative by raising awareness, engaging communities, and enhancing vaccination efforts. A high-level advocacy visit was conducted to an outreach vaccination session in an urban slum area, hosted by Addis Ababa City Administration Health Bureau in collaboration with Woreda 03 Health

On July 25, 2025, the Palais de Verre Paul Biya in Yaounde, Cameroon, hosted a high-level seminar addressing the urgent need to regulate and tax unhealthy food products. The event was organized by the Reconciliation and Development Association (RADA) in collaboration with key health stakeholders, including the Parliamentary Health Funding Caucus, the Cameroonian parliamentary network

The Ministry of Health, in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO) and partners, convened a national Ebola Accountability Forum on 24 July 2025 to reflect on Uganda’s response to the 2025 Ebola outbreak and to strengthen future preparedness efforts. Presided over by Dr Jane Ruth Aceng, Minister of Health, the forum brought together more

Accra, Ghana – The Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, and the WHO Regional Director for Africa, Dr Mohammed Yakubu Janabi, have commenced an official visit to Ghana from 4–6 August 2025. Their visit comes ahead of the Africa Health Sovereignty Summit: The Accra Compact, scheduled for 5 August in

Brazzaville, Congo – When health experts across the WHO African region, logged into the virtual WHO consultation on 30 July 2025, they knew the stakes were high. Across the continent, hospitals are losing nurses to overseas recruiters, clinics are short-staffed, and young medical graduates face the dilemma of staying to serve or leaving in search

HUMANITARIAN OVERVIEW Ethiopia has continued its efforts in mounting intensified robust response to the multiple, prolonged complex humanitarian emergencies in country. Most of the emergencies are precipitated by internal armed conflicts, food insecurity, malnutrition, disease outbreaks, and the effects of climate change. Since 2024, the number of people in need of humanitarian assistance increased to

Cameroon is embarking on a transformative journey to revamp its emergency medical services (EMS) system, marking a significant milestone in public health. The Ministry of Public Health, with the unwavering support of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Korean International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), has validated the 2024 evaluation report that sheds light on the

Sexual exploitation, abuse, and harassment (SEAH) have no place in development or health programming. Beyond the personal toll on survivors, such violations erode trust, compromise results, and undermine the very systems meant to serve the vulnerable. That’s why strengthening the capacity of programme officers to identify, prevent, and respond to SEAH is not just important—it’s

Cervical cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer-related deaths among women worldwide—despite being almost entirely preventable. Each year, over 600,000 women are diagnosed , and more than 340,000 die from the disease globally. The burden is heaviest in low- and middle-income countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, where nine out of ten cervical cancer

Kampala, Uganda – With support from the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), the World Health Organization (WHO) is collaborating with the Government of Uganda to train 78 multidisciplinary One Health responders under the Strengthening and Utilizing Response Groups for Emergencies (SURGE) flagship programme. The AVoHC-SURGE training, a cornerstone of WHO’s Emergency Preparedness and Response (EPR)

Nairobi ‒ “In the event of a filovirus outbreak, we must always be prepared and clearly understand our roles, especially in the treatment centre,” says Mikali Waswa, a laboratory technician at Kenya’s National Public Health Institute. “It’s important to know exactly what we are supposed to do when deployed.” To bolster Kenya’s operational readiness for

Nairobi ‒ Effective health emergency management must not only emphasize rapid deployment and operational delivery, but also prioritize the systematic decommissioning of temporary health infrastructure after a response. Temporary setups—like tents and modular clinics—are critical during emergencies, but they must be dismantled just as systematically as they are deployed. Decommissioning involves dismantling structures, assessing residual supplies