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WHO Regional Office for Africa
Source: WHO Regional Office for Africa |

African health ministers, partners urge equitable access to critical tools to curb cervical cancer threat

Of the more than 76 000 cervical cancer deaths globally in 2022, the most updated data available, nearly a quarter (23%) were in Africa

Inequitable access to vaccines and high-performance screening tools is hampering efforts to effectively reduce the growing burden of cervical cancer in the African region, which accounts for the highest rates of new cases and deaths due to the disease. Despite being preventable and treatable through human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination and…

WHO Regional Office for Africa
Source: WHO Regional Office for Africa |

Timely outbreak response, enhanced surveillance halts wild poliovirus transmission in Southern Africa

To enhance polio surveillance, over the past two years, 15 new wastewater surveillance sites were established in the affected countries

Following thorough assessments in Malawi and Mozambique, an independent Polio Outbreak Response Assessment Team (OBRA) today recommended the closure of the wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) outbreak in Malawi and Mozambique, marking a significant milestone in the fight against polio in the African region. The last WPV1 case in the…

WHO Regional Office for Africa
Source: WHO Regional Office for Africa |

Nearly 10 000 children vaccinated as malaria vaccine rollout in Africa expands

A wider malaria vaccine rollout is underway this year in several African countries, with Cameroon being the first outside the malaria vaccine pilot programme to do so

Nearly 10 000 children in Burkina Faso and Cameroon have now received the RTS,S malaria vaccine since being introduced this year. A wider malaria vaccine rollout is underway this year in several African countries, with Cameroon being the first outside the malaria vaccine pilot programme to do so. Cameroon launched…

WHO Regional Office for Africa
Source: WHO Regional Office for Africa |

Burundi declares outbreak of circulating poliovirus type 2

The Burundian government plans to implement a vaccination campaign to combat polio in the coming weeks, aiming at protecting all eligible children against the virus

Health authorities in Burundi today declared an outbreak of circulating poliovirus type 2 (CVDPV 2) after confirming eight polioviruses, the first such detection in more than three decades. The cases were confirmed in a four-year-old child in Isale district in western Burundi who had not received any polio vaccination, as…

WHO Regional Office for Africa
Source: WHO Regional Office for Africa |

Mozambique targets 720 000 people in cholera vaccination drive

People aged one year and older will be vaccinated in the five-day campaign, which started just 10 days after the country took delivery of vaccine doses

Mozambique today kicked off a cholera vaccination campaign targeting around 720 000 people in eight districts as the country steps up control measures against an outbreak in which 5260 cases and 37 deaths have been recorded to date since September 2022. People aged one year and older will be vaccinated…

WHO Regional Office for Africa
Source: WHO Regional Office for Africa |

Uganda declares end of Ebola disease outbreak

It was the country’s first Sudan ebolavirus outbreak in a decade and its fifth overall for this kind of Ebola

Uganda today declared the end of the Ebola disease outbreak caused by Sudan ebolavirus, less than four months after the first case was confirmed in the country’s central Mubende district on 20 September 2022. “Uganda put a swift end to the Ebola outbreak by ramping up key control measures such…

WHO Regional Office for Africa

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    • Bolstering Africa’s health emergency readiness and response
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Source: WHO Regional Office for Africa |

Bolstering Africa’s health emergency readiness and response

The latest simulation took place against the backdrop of an ongoing Ebola outbreak in Uganda

The World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Africa in partnership with Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, West African Health Organization, United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, UK Health Security Agency, Robert Koch Institute and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation today kicked off the region’s…

WHO Regional Office for Africa
Source: WHO Regional Office for Africa |

Guarding against antimicrobial resistance in Liberia

AMR is a major public health crisis across Africa

Soon after her emergency caesarean section procedure in 2021 in Phebe Hospital in Bong, Liberia, a young mother developed a far greater yet mystifying emergency: An infection developed where she had been cut during surgery to deliver her baby, and it was refusing to heal.  In her two years at…

WHO Regional Office for Africa
Source: WHO Regional Office for Africa |

World Health Organization (WHO) steps up support to Uganda’s evolving Ebola outbreak as hope for vaccines increases

The aim of the randomized trial is to evaluate potentially efficacious candidate vaccines, and to possibly contribute to ending the ongoing outbreak and protect populations at risk in the future

As the first doses of candidate vaccines against the Sudan ebolavirus are expected to arrive in Uganda in the coming days, World Health Organization (WHO) is boosting efforts to support the government-led response against the outbreak which has now affected nine districts, including three complex urban environments. A WHO committee…

WHO Regional Office for Africa

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    • African region tops world in undiagnosed diabetes: World Health Organization (WHO) analysis
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Source: WHO Regional Office for Africa |

African region tops world in undiagnosed diabetes: World Health Organization (WHO) analysis

In the region, only one in two people living with type 1 diabetes—the most common form of paediatric diabetes—has access to insulin treatment

Only 46% of people living with diabetes in the African region know their status, raising the risk of severe illness and death, potentially worsening the situation in the region which already has the world’s highest mortality rates due to the disease, a new analysis by World Health Organization (WHO) shows.…