“As WHO Malawi Country Office, we had to come in and upon being requested by the Ministry of Health (MOH) we approved the sum of MK 66,251,000.00 from the German Grant to support districts considered more susceptible to cholera in the country. The support was to enable the districts implement cholera preparedness and prevention activities

Lusaka - Zambia is grappling with a severe drought, declared a national disaster at the end of February. Over 1 million people in 84 of the 116 districts have been affected, and the lack of rainfall is devastating crop and animal production.   According to the government’s crop assessment data, the drought has destroyed 983

Abuja, 3 June, 2024 - Bassey Effiong, 42, started smoking as a teenager thinking “it was cool”. “I thought it showed you were in charge and independent. I was influenced by people who smoked in my neighbourhood, in movies, and in music videos, he says.  Now as a medical practitioner who has better knowledge of the

Mutare – The number of cholera cases in Zimbabwe is declining thanks to the expanded and decentralized cholera response activities undertaken by the Ministry of Health and Child Care (MoHCC), supported by WHO and other partners. While current figures remain higher compared to the same period last year, this reduction is a welcome development, given

Every year, more than 8 million people die worldwide from tobacco use. More than 7 million of these deaths result from direct tobacco consumption, and around 1.2 million are due to exposure of non-smokers to second-hand smoke. Data from the World Health Organization (WHO) show that around 22,000 women in the African region die every

Lusaka – Titus Mwanza switched from farming tobacco to cultivating diverse crops such as soybeans, sunflowers, groundnuts and maize four years ago, after his family faced health and economic challenges associated with tobacco farming. “What made me to stop tobacco farming is the problems that were in my family and the profits were not good,” he

Lusaka – Titus Mwanza switched from farming tobacco to cultivating diverse crops such as soybeans, sunflowers, groundnuts and maize four years ago, after his family faced health and economic challenges associated with tobacco farming.  “What made me to stop tobacco farming is the problems that were in my family and the profits were not good,”

Brazzaville – Tobacco use among adolescents in the African region declined by nearly 18% between 2020 and 2022, and by 46% among adults during the same period as countries adopt stronger measures to control the use of tobacco.  The African region is on track to achieve 30% relative reduction in tobacco use prevalence by 2025

Pretoria ‒ Tobacco consumption in Africa presents complex public health, economic and environmental challenges and requires a multisectoral approach to prevention and control. Professor Lekan Ayo-Yusuf of the Africa Centre for Tobacco Industry Monitoring and Policy Research (ATIM) at the University of Pretoria discusses tobacco control measures in Africa.  What are the tobacco consumption trends

Lilongwe ‒ Shombe Banda from Kasungu District in Central Malawi was a tobacco farmer for 35 years. He recently switched to growing other crops, such as soya beans, groundnuts and maize. His motivation to change was mostly economic, he says.  “With tobacco, I was losing,” says Banda. “It requires a lot of inputs like fertilizer

Juba, 31 May 2024—In a historic step towards safeguarding children's lives and alleviating the high incidence of malaria in the country, the first consignment of the R21 malaria vaccine arrived in Juba today. The Ministry of Health received over 645 000 doses, which will be distributed to 28 counties with the highest malaria burden as

SUMMARY OF CRISIS AND KEY FINDINGS 24 May 2024 Weeks of relentless rainfall have plunged East Africa into a state of emergency, affecting hundreds of thousands of people across Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, South Sudan, Rwanda, Somalia, and Tanzania. Heavy rains and flash floods continued to cause damage and displacement with an estimated 1.6 million people