Eritrea News

Eritrea also joined the World commemorating World AIDS Day on 1 December 2016 at Orotta Conference Hall in Asmara under the theme “Hands up for HIV Prevention”. The commemoration was officially opened by the Director General of Public Health, Dr Andat Tefatsion, representing the Hon Minister of Health. In his speech, he said that Eritrea must continue to augment its existing programs and further promote effective initiatives and interventions in order to prevent new HIV infections even though it has scored remarkable achievements.

Eritrea observed the World Diabetes Day 2016 at Cinema Roma on the 12 November 2016 in Asmara under the theme “Eyes on Diabetes”. The ceremony began with students parade from Bahtimeske to Cinema Roma with banners and caps featuring key messages of the day.

Eritrea conducted the Joint External Evaluation as part of the county’s implementation of International Health Regulations (2005) from 3 to 7 October 2016 at Orotta Conference Hall in Asmara. Presiding over the official opening of the workshop, Honorable minister of Health, Mrs Amina Nurhussien stressed the main objective of the workshop to review and evaluate the status of implementation of IHR (2005) jointly with the external evaluators from WHO. Hon.

Eritrea received an award of recognition for its exceptional achievement for effective utilization of stock management for immunization services for the third time.

The African vaccine week in Eritrea was observed from 25-30 April, 2016 at national level in all zobas focusing more on polio eradication endgame and the importance of quality of vaccination.  The service provided was to strengthen the routine immunization programmes in the country by increasing public awareness on the importance of every person’s right to be protected from vaccine-preventable diseases at set times and schedules.

The East African Advanced Course on Pharmacovigilance was held in Asmara, Eritrea from 10th to 16th April 2016 under the theme “Developing Proactive Pharmacovigilance and Risk Management Strategies in East Africa”. This course brought together 81 participants from 10 African countries acting in their individual capacities as experts and/or stakeholders in pharmacovigilance (PV) in Africa and six countries from Asia, USA and Europe. 

Year 2015 marks an important milestone for the United Nations. It is the year when the UN turned 70. It is inspir-ing to watch, read and be part of the organization’s achievements. Eritrea opened its doors to the UN in 1992 and over the years, the organization has built good work-ing relations with the Government of the State of Eritrea (GoSE) and supported its development priorities.

Download United Nations Eritrea newsletter-December 2015 (3.66 MB)

Hon. Minister of Health, Mrs Amina Nurhussien made official visit to the WHO Country Office for Eritrea. The aim of the visit was to review ongoing collaboration between MOH and WHO;  and explore new ways of strengthening collaboration in order to further improve the health outcomes of the people of Eritrea. The Hon. Minister was accompanied on the visit by Dr Andom O. Director General of policy and planning and Dr Ghirmai Tesfaslasie, advisor on International Relations.

Eritrea launched the introduction of Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine (PCV-13) in to routine immunization program.

The event which took place at Villagio Community Hospital was attended by officials of MOH, UN, Health Workers, Journalists and the General Public.

Pneumococcal disease is one of the leading vaccine-preventable killers of young children world wide. It killed more than 500,000 children younger than five years of age in 2008 alone. Approximately, 90% of these deaths occurred in the developing world.

The Eritrean  Ministry of Health  conducted an assessment of the country capacity on the health Disaster Risk Management (DRM). This is a key step in the implementation of the Regional Health Sector DRM strategy as its findings will help develop DRM Road Map to operationalize Regional Strategy at country level.