Ethiopia News

WHO Ethiopia trains journalists on public health emergency (PHE) reporting from Nov 19-20, 2018; at Bishoftu Liesak Resort. The training was facilitated by Senior Producer at Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation (EBC) and Yimer Dawod Deputy Editor – in-Chief at Fana Broadcasting Corporate (FBC) who have been trained in Nirobi by WHO AFRO in 2018.

Addis Ababa, Oct. 18 2018: Ethiopia launches the 7th round National Health Account (NHA). . A health account (HA) aims to generate up-to-date empirical evidence on spending in health care in order to inform health policy formulation and development. The Ethiopian government is committed to track spending on health regularly every two or three years and six rounds of health accounts were conducted since the HA introduced in to the country in 2000.

WHO, UNICEF and Rotary International United join forces to fight two outbreaks of circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus (cVDPV) in the region.

Addis Ababa, 19, September 2018: Four countries from the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) signed a communique on polio eradication in Garissa, Kenya on 14th September 2018. The communique underscored the need to combine and strengthen the effort of Horn of Africa countries currently responding to an outbreak of poliovirus detected in environmental surveillance and human case samples from Somalia and Kenya. The polio outbreak has been classified as a Grade 2 Public Health Emergency of International Concern. The detection of poliovirus in these two IGAD countries leaves the remaining five IGAD member states (Ethiopia, South Sudan, Sudan, Uganda and Djibouti) at high risk for similar outbreaks due to population movement.

The Ethiopian Ministry of Health has launched a preventive measles vaccination campaign to immunize 928 000 children aged 6 months to 15 years among the internally displaced and host communities in Gedeo Zone of the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Region. The campaign will also involve administering vitamin A to children aged six months to five years and deworming of children aged two to five years. Plans are underway for a similar campaign targeting 516 000 children in West Guji Zone of Oromia Region.

On 12 July 2018, the World Health Organization (WHO) country office in Ethiopia delivered 50 basic Inter-agency Emergency Health Kits (IEHK) of drugs and medical supplies, six IEHK supplementary kits and five IEHK renewable kits containing gloves, needles, syringes and intravenous fluid sets to the Gedeo Health Department in Dilla town of Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Region (SNNPR) Ethiopia to support the zone in its response to the health needs of the internally displaced persons (IDPs) that it is hosting.  The medical supplies and drugs in the 50 basic Inter-Agency Emergency Health Kits (IEHK) will help treat 50 000 people for three months, the six IEHK supplementary kits have medical supplies and drugs to help treat 60 000 people for three months and the five IEHK renewable kits will support the treatment of 50 000 people for three months.   The supplies were delivered during the WHO Representative Dr Akpaka Kalu’s visit to the zone to assess the situation on the ground and meet with zonal and woreda health administration to discuss priority areas that the organization can support with to address the immediate health needs of the more than 800 000 IDPs sheltered in different locations in the zone.  

Addis Ababa July 09th, 2018: The launching ceremony of the first round of synchronized Polio (mOPV2) campaign was conducted yesterday on 9th July 2018 in Gode, one of the five selected zones of Somali Region. The launching was attended by representatives from Federal Ministry of Health, the Shabele zonal Administration Head, Mayor of Gode City administration, representatives from religious leaders, Gode town communities, mothers with children and partners including USAID, CDC, WHO, UNICEF, Core Group and other immunization partners.