Niger News

Niger: improving access to services to reduce maternal mortality

Niamey – When 19-year-old Aichatou, from Birni in the Dosso region, found out she was pregnant with her first child in 2023, her hope was for a smooth pregnancy and safe delivery. But she was reluctant to visit a health centre. “My sisters told me the staff don’t pay enough attention to women during antenatal checkups, and that the care is often slow,” she says. 

Integrating female cancer screening into primary health care in Niger 

Niamey ‒ In Niger, efforts are underway to mainstream screening for gynaecological cancers into primary health care services thanks to the WHO PEN approach, a WHO programme that aims to integrate the management of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) into basic health care. This initiative, in its pilot phase, is being carried out in Mayahi District, Maradi Region, in the centre south of the country.

Niger in the race to end diphtheria outbreak

Niamey – Mariam, a mother of five living in Kantché, a rural community in Niger's southern Zinder region, remembers the difficult time she went through earlier this year when two of her five children were hospitalized at the same time. “First, it was my nine-year-old son who came home with a strong cough, complaining of a sore throat. He coughed all night and it only got worse. He was finally hospitalized at the Kantché health centre, where his 11-year-old sister also fell ill and, in the end, both were lying there fighting the deadly disease.

Aminata Kaoucen, Nurse

Aminata Kaoucen works as a nurse for a local NGO called Action pour le Bien-Être in Southern Niger, where she attends to refugees from neighbouring Nigeria at an integrated health centre in the Garin Kaka refugee camp.