Ethiopia News

At a landmark Ministerial Conference on Immunization in Africa held from 24-25 February 2016 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, African ministers of health and other line ministers signed a declaration to promote the use of vaccines to protect people of all ages against vaccine-preventable diseases and to close the immunization gap by 2020.

At a lunch meeting organized by GAVI – the Vaccine Alliance on the Unfinished Business of Immunization during the Ordinary General Assembly of the Organisation of African First Ladies against HIV/AIDS (OAFLA), immunization partners and OAFLA came together to renew their commitment to complete the “unfinished business with child health in Africa”. 

Dr Matshidiso Moeti visited Ethiopia on 22-26 February 2016 to lead the historic first-ever Ministerial Conference on Immunization in Africa organized by the African and Eastern Mediterranean regions of the World Health Organization together with the African Union Commission.

Dr Moeti also spoke at the Meningitis Vaccine Project closure conference held ahead of the First Ministerial Conference on Immunization. 

Ethiopia commemorated World Cancer Day under the global theme “We can. I can.” by inaugurating a comprehensive cancer treatment center in Addis Ababa in Woreda Eight Health Center on 6 February 2016. The center is the first ever at woreda (district) level and second in the country Black Lion Specialized Hospital. 

Emergency and WASH teams of WHO and UNICEF hold regular meetings to discuss the best way of coordinating the two UN agencies’ support to the Government of Ethiopia’s response to the ongoing acute watery diarrhea (AWD) outbreak in the country.  The most recent get-together took place on 9 March, where existing gaps, past successes and shortfalls were identified and discussed to best devise the way forward.

In the quest to prevent cervical cancer, Ethiopia launched a pilot Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) vaccination pilot project in December 2015 targeting adolescent girls in the 9-13 year age group in Oromia and Tigray regions.

Substandard, spurious, falsely labelled, falsified and counterfeit (SSFFC) medical products pose an unacceptable risk to public health. SSFFC medical products affect every region of the world, and all major therapeutic categories of medicines, including vaccines and diagnostics. They harm patients and undermine confidence in medical products, healthcare professionals and health systems.

In response to the need for access to life-saving surgical care, the World Health Organization's Emergency and Essential Surgical Care rogram has developed and launched the 'Integrated Management for Emergency and Essential Surgical Care'(IMEESC) toolkit via a mobile phone application. The toolkit will make available key resources in obstetric and surgical care literally at users’ fingertips.

ADDIS ABABA, 28 December 2015 | The WHO Country Office, in collaboration with the Ethiopian Federal Ministry of Health (FMoH), conducted a one-day induction workshop on emergency response for its repurposed staff and consultants.

In response to the emergency situation caused by the El Niño weather phenomenon, the World Health Organization (WHO) has deployed a team of experts to work with the WHO Ethiopia Country Office team in coordinating the health response, assessing health impacts and needs, and strengthening disease early warning and outbreak management systems. The WHO Representative for Ethiopia gives overall direction and guidance to the emergency response activities of the newly reorganized emergency response team.