Commentaries

Op-Ed by Adelheid Onyango and Bibi Giyose - When faced with a crisis, our natural reaction is to deal with its immediate threats. Ateka* came to the make-shift clinic with profuse diarrhoea: they diagnosed cholera. The urgent concern in the midst of that humanitarian crisis was to treat the infection and send her home as quickly as possible.

Statement of the Regional Director, Dr Matshidiso Moeti, on the launch of “Nursing Now” The ‘Nursing Now’ campaign, to be launched in Geneva, London and Kampala on 27 February 2018, aims to improve health globally by raising the status and profile of nursing, and enable nurses to maximize their contribution to achieving Universal Health Coverage (UHC).  ‘Nursing Now’ is hosted by the Burdett Trust for Nursing, an independent charitable trust in the UK, supported by the UK Departments of…

This World AIDS Day, December 1, the Government of Sweden, together with the regional offices of UNFPA, UNAIDS, UNICEF and WHO, announces the start of a USD45 million Joint United Nations (UN) four-year Regional Programme to reduce unintended pregnancies, sexually transmitted infections (STIs), new HIV infections, maternal mortality and sexual and gender-based violence (GBV) across East and Southern Africa.

In 1995, polio affected all countries across Africa and paralysed more than 75,000 children for life. The following year, Nelson Mandela launched a new campaign: ‘Kick Polio Out of Africa.’ His hope was that polio would follow the only human disease ever consigned to the history books: smallpox. Today we are one step closer to achieving that goal.

Good morning to the members of the media. Thank you for coming. The Ebola outbreak that is ravaging parts of west Africa is the largest, most severe, and most complex in the nearly four-decade history of this disease. This is Ebola Zaire, the most deadly in the Ebola family of viruses. This is a dreaded virus that is highly contagious, but under only two very specific settings. Read more

Today, 3 September 2015, WHO declares Liberia free of Ebola virus transmission in the human population. Forty-two days have passed since the second negative test on 22 July 2015 of the last laboratory-confirmed case. Liberia now enters a 90-day period of heightened surveillance.