Fifteen African countries delayed measles immunization drives last year as they dealt with the COVID-19 pandemic. While seven of these countries have now completed the campaigns, eight remain outstanding, posing a risk of major measles outbreaks.
Read moreOver the past two decades, the world has made great progress in reducing malaria cases and deaths, but the pace has stalled in many high malaria burden African countries. Global malaria cases dropped by 29% between 2000 and 2019, but only by 2% between 2015 and 2019 when deaths fell by 15% compared with 60% between 2000 and 2019. Professor Francis Omaswa, Executive Director, African Centre for Global Health and Social Transformation, explains what needs to be done to get malaria control and prevention back on track
Read moreCabo Verde has gone for three consecutive years – as of January 2021 – without local malaria transmission, becoming eligible to apply for the World Health Organization (WHO) certification of malaria elimination.
Read moreThe Gambia has successfully eliminated trachoma as a public health problem, becoming the third African country to be validated by the World Health Organization (WHO) as having eliminated the disease as a public health threat.
Read moreMore than 13.6 million – including 12 million AstraZeneca – vaccine doses have been administered in Africa, with most of the adverse events reports following vaccination involving only mild to moderate side effects. There have been no cases of blood coagulation disorders reported following vaccination.
Read moreImam El hadj Moussa Soumahoro wears a serious face. He has just ended a morning sermon that concluded with Ebola preventive messages and the importance of vaccination against the virus that recently re-emerged in Guinea for the first time since the 2014–2016 outbreak. Soumahoro has joined the fight against the disease.
Read moreLess than 2% of the 690 million COVID-19 vaccine doses administered to date globally have been in Africa, where most countries received vaccines only five weeks ago and in small quantities.
Read moreA few days after he referred a patient from his clinic to the regional hospital, Emmanuel Goepogui, a private practitioner in N’Zerekore prefecture in south-eastern Guinea, received a visit by a community disease surveillance team. “They came to inform me that my patient had tested positive for Ebola and that I was a direct contact,” he says.
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