South Sudan News

30 November 2021, Juba - To determine the pending priority activities, funding gaps and potential funding sources for the implementation of the National Action Plan for Health Security (NAPHS) 2020-2024, South Sudan’s Ministry of Health with support from the World Health Organization (WHO) and partners have embarked on mapping of existing and potential resources in an effort to strengthen health security.

The implementation of the NAPHS will help the country to attain the core capacity requirements under the International Health Regulation (IHR, 2005).

Given South Sudan’s increased vulnerability to disease outbreaks and other public health threats, strengthening national disease surveillance and response and systems is crucial for early detection and rapid containment of disease outbreaks to help prevent needless illnesses and deaths.

Juba, 25 November 2021 – The Ministry of Health in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO), has commenced a multi-stakeholder Health Sector Performance Review, to identify issues that need to be addressed to improve performance in the health sector of South Sudan. The review is based on the progress of implementation of the Health Sector Strategic Plan (HSSP) 2017 – 2022, of the current National Health Policy (2016 to 2026).

To strengthen the capacities to detect, investigate and respond to suspected Ebola Virus Disease (EVD), WHO supported the Ministry of Health to deploy a multidisciplinary team of epidemiologists, clinicians and infection prevention and control (IPC) officers, and risk communication experts to Morobo and Yei River counties of Central Equatoria State to strengthen coordination, surveillance, IPC, and risk communication activities for prevention, detection, investigation and response to a threat of cross-border spread of the EVD outbreak.

Juba, 14 October 2021 – a team of technical officers in the National Public Health Laboratory have been trained over the last week, aiming at building their capacity to contribute to controlling yellow fever outbreaks.

Juba, 8 October 2021 – The South Sudan Ministry of Health supported by the World Health Organization (WHO) convened a five-day health risk profiling workshop in Juba to assess and analyze public health risks for effective planning and prioritization of health emergencies and disasters risk management activities.

To improve response to emergencies, the World Health Organization (WHO) in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and partners convened a Joint Operational Review (JOR) to evaluate South Sudan’s response to health emergencies and other humanitarian crises. The JoR aimed at identifying and documenting the best practices, gaps, challenges and lessons learned during the response to the humanitarian emergencies so that efforts and resources of WHO and partners are prioritized to deliver results and are aligned with up-to-date, evidence-based plans.

Juba, 18 September 2021 – Timely information and appropriate response are vital for preventing and effective control of public health events, outbreaks, and pandemics. As a core requirement of the international health regulations (IHR (2005), countries continue to invest in building and maintaining robust surveillance systems to enable timely detection and public health response for enhanced national and international public health security.

17 September 2021, Juba -  to improve capacity for coordination and communication to mitigate the risk of cross-border spread of disease and other public health threats, WHO with support from the Government of Japan has established and handed over a port health facility at the Juba International Airport to the Ministry of Health in South Sudan.

Juba, 14 September 2021 –South Sudan received its first consignment of 152,950 doses of the Johnson & Johnson ‘Janssen’ COVID-19 vaccines today. These single dose Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccines are the third batch of vaccine shipments to South Sudan through the COVAX Facility.  

The first batch of AstraZeneca vaccines were shipped through the COVAX facility to South Sudan on 25 March 2021 and the second batch of 59,520 AstraZeneca vaccines donated by France arrived on 31 August 2021 and a donation from Sweden is slated for arrival soon.