As Chief Medical Director at the Sokoto Noma Children’s Hospital in the northwest corner of Nigeria, Dr Shafiu Isah dedicates his days to treating children suffering from a neglected disease that few people have even heard of. Noma is a gangrenous disease that attacks facial tissue and bone. Without treatment, it kills around 90% of…

Kinshasa – Yole Monlwa, 22, vividly remembers the day he heard a radio broadcast on the importance of testing for leprosy. “At the time, I could not feel my hand, nor even move my fingers. I had had two ineffective treatments. I went with my parents to the hospital mentioned on the radio, and was

Brazzaville - More than 91 million Africans live with Hepatitis B or C, which are the deadliest strains of the virus, according to a World Health Organization (WHO) scorecard that launched today – ahead of tomorrow’s World Hepatitis Day. The Viral Hepatitis Scorecard 2021 looks at data from the African region but focuses on Hepatitis B and C, both of which cause liver cirrhosis and cancer. It found that in 19 countries, more…

Sumbawanga and Zanzibar – The World Health Organization in Tanzania is working with the Ministries of Health in Tanzania Mainland and Zanzibar, to implement a community mobilization campaign aimed at raising the coverage of COVID-19 vaccination in Districts with low coverage; using vaccine “champions”. The COVID-19 Vaccine Champions Campaign is a flagship bottom-up campaign focusing…

The Ministry of Health, the World Health Organization (WHO), and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) trained over 70 emergency responders, including managers, national trainers, and rapid response teams, on rapid deployment and operational response to public health emergencies at the Nile Village Hotel in Jinja. With financial funding from the Ministry…

Brazzaville – The World Health Organization (WHO) welcomes the launch by Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, of the landmark opportunity for countries to apply for funding to introduce, or further roll-out, the RTS,S/AS01 (RTS,S) malaria vaccine. This international support of nearly US$ 160 million from 2022-2025 will facilitate increased vaccine access to children at high risk of…

29 April 2022 Eritrea in a high-profile event celebrated the launch of four strategic documents: The National Health Sector Strategic Development Plan 2022-26 (HSSDP III) and its Monitoring and Evaluation Plan, the Essential Health Care Package (2021), and the National Action Plan for Health Security 2022-26 (NAPHS) on 28 April 2022. The launch event was…

Gaborone, 28 April 2022 – Pandemic-related disruptions, increasing inequalities in access to vaccines, and the COVID-19-related diversion of resources from routine immunization are leaving too many children without protection against vaccine-preventable diseases. As Botswana joins the world in celebrating World Immunization Week and the historic achievements through vaccines, the country needs to urgently turn the…

Johannesburg, April 29, 2022 – The African Region accounted for 66% of the 303,000 maternal deaths recorded globally in 2017.  To address this situation, WHO in collaboration with UNFPA, UNICEF and partners supports Member States to ensure that all women and girls have access to quality and timely health services, particularly during pregnancy, childbirth, and…

Brazzaville – World Health Organization (WHO) has released US$ 8.3 million from its Contingency Funding for Emergencies to assist the 10.6 million people in need of emergency health services in the Sahel region. Humanitarian agencies and governments estimate that 33.2 million people are grappling with the devastating impacts of armed conflict, insecurity, food insecurity and…

Niamey – "What I experienced with this disease is terrible. I saw death at close range." Amadou Elh Mamoudou counts himself fortunate. The 35-year-old survived a cholera outbreak in his village of Maradi, in south-central Niger, one of the areas most affected by the outbreak between March and December 2021. Once recovered, Amadou joined health…

Brazzaville – Africa is witnessing a surge in outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases over the past year. Almost 17 500 cases of measles were recorded in the African region between January and March 2022, marking a 400% increase compared with the same period in 2021. Twenty African countries reported measles outbreaks in the first quarter of…