Liberia Events

Monrovia - Monday, 7 April is World Health Day, commemorating the 77th anniversary of the establishment of the World Health Organization (WHO). This year’s theme, “Healthy Beginnings, Hopeful Futures”, highlights the critical need to prioritize interventions to improve maternal and newborn health.  

Globally each year, over 300 000 women die from preventable causes related to pregnancy or childbirth. The African Region accounts for 70% of these deaths and for half of the 2 million babies that die around the world in their first month of life. In Liberia, for every 1000 women who give birth, seven die from pregnancy-related causes, and up to 37 babies born alive die in their first month of life. These figures are one of the highest in the region and indicate a significant need for continued and intensified efforts.

In 2024, the Government of Liberia declared the level of maternal deaths a Public Health Emergency to accelerate the development and implementation of appropriate interventions to curb these preventable maternal and newborn deaths in the country. To support these efforts, WHO has been working with the Ministry of Health and partners to:
-    Strengthen and invest in primary healthcare, particularly around the time of birth and the first day, first week and first month of life as half the stillbirths, and most babies are dying in this time period.
-    Improve the quality of maternal and newborn care from pregnancy to the entire postnatal period, including strengthening midwifery.
-    Expand quality services for small and/or sick newborns, including through strengthening neonatal nursing, and scaling up support for, and implementation of kangaroo mother care.
-    Reduce inequities in accordance with the principles of universal health coverage, including addressing the needs of mothers and newborns in humanitarian and fragile settings.
-    Promote engagement of and empower mothers, families and communities to participate in and demand quality maternal and newborn care.
-    Strengthen measurement, programme tracking and accountability to count every maternal and newborn death, and every stillbirth.

To mark the World Health Day 2025 in Liberia, the WHO Country Office in collaboration with the Ministry of Health, the UN Country Team, and key partners will kick-off a year-long campaign to ramp up efforts to end preventable maternal and newborn deaths, and to prioritize women’s longer-term health and well-being.  The inaugural event will begin with a health walk, followed by an indoor program in Bentol City, Montserrado County, serving as an opportunity to renew advocacy for collective efforts, including domestic investments, to accelerate the reduction of maternal and newborn deaths in Liberia.

WHO will continue to collaborate with the Ministry of Health and the Government of Liberia and partners to accelerate comprehensive improvement of maternal and newborn health services in the country with the aim to reduce maternal and newborn deaths and ensure the wellbeing of women and children. 

Monrovia, 27 July 2021: Liberia on 25th July 2021 received a donation of 302,400 doses of the Johnson and Johnson (J&J) COVID-19 vaccine from the United States Government through the COVAX facility; a partnership of CEPI, GAVI, UNICEF and WHO to expand the COVID-19 vaccination coverage in the country. 

In March of this year, the country received 96,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine and so far, over 95,000 doses have been administered.  With the arrival of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine, the country will resume the vaccination campaign, which has been halted after vaccines previously received were used up amid case surge in in June and July.

The US Ambassador in a brief speech informed the Government of Liberia that the donation is a part of the Biden-Harris administration’s commitment to share U.S. vaccines supply to the world. “We are proud to continue working together with the Liberian Government, the private sector and civil society to do everything we can to mitigate the pandemic’s high toll on life, livelihoods and social impacts,” remarked Michael McCarthy. To everyone who has not been vaccinated, I strongly encourage you to do so as I did; as soon as you have the opportunity.”
 

Receiving the donation on behalf of the Government of Liberia, the Hon. Minister of Foreign Affairs (a.i) Mrs. Thelma Duncan Sawyer thanked the American Government and all collaborating partners for this worthy donation. “Let us realize that this is our country and the partners are here to help therefore, we must continue to follow all the rules including getting vaccinated” she said.

In her remarks, the Hon. Minister for Health Dr.  Wilhelmina Jallah thanked the US Government and all the partners involved in the COVID-19 response efforts, notably the World Health Organization, UNICEF and GAVI.  She noted that these vaccines will go a long way in boosting the covid-19 vaccination campaign initiated earlier this year by the Ministry of Health and partners.

Speaking on behalf of the United Nations (UN) in Liberia, Mr. Neils Scott, UN Resident Coordinator   commended the American Government for this intervention. He emphasized that the availability of vaccines alone is not only enough, but rather the use of the vaccines by the public to prevent more serious infections. 
 “The challenge is to address vaccine misinformation in the population and to work hard in convincing the public to get vaccinated is the surest and fastest way to end this pandemic” He noted.  

The Resident Coordinator urged the general public to continue taking the necessary precautions to protect themselves, their families and their communities. 

The ceremony was attended by the Head of Agencies of WHO and UNICEF, senior Government officials, staff form the United Nations family, the International Rescue Committee and the media.

Health Promotion in the Sustainable Development Goals

Date: 21–24 November 2016
Place: Shanghai, China

The 9th Global Conference on Health Promotion (9GCHP) will be co-organized by WHO and the National Health and Family Planning Commission (NHFPC) of the People's Republic of China.

• 9th Global Conference on Health Promotion (9GCHP)

The conference will provide an unprecedented opportunity to reassert the significance of health promotion in improving health and health equity at the historical moment of 30 years anniversary of Ottawa Charter, and the first year of implementing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It will direct and guide Member States on the practical application of evidence-based health promotion concepts, approaches and mechanisms for achieving SDGs.

Goals

Goals of the conference are to:

• Raise awareness about the importance and potential of health promotion as a transformative strategic approach to deliver for the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
• Highlight the need for reflecting health promotion in national SDG responses.
• Showcase how health promotion can accelerate progress on specific SDG targets.

Participants

750 invited participants representing different levels of Member State governments, UN and international organizations, civil society and international financial institutions and foundations.

Representatives from health and other sectors relevant for health determinants, such as education, environment, employment, agriculture, trade, transportation, housing, finance, foreign and development policy.

Objectives and format

For detailed information on the conference, including background documentation, policy briefs and circular letters please see:

• Objectives, format, and structure

Official website and registration

The government of China is hosting the official website for the conference:

• Conference website
• Registration

Representatives of Health Ministries of 10 African countries (Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinee Bissau, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, DRC, and Togo) will meet in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, from 9-11 November 2016, in the context of the workshop of the Regional Noma Control programme.

The overall objective of this intercountry workshop, organized by the WHO Regional Office for Africa, in collaboration with the Ministry of Health of Burkina Faso and with the support of the Hilfsaktion noma e.V. NGO, is to scale up prevention and control in the affected countries through the sharing of the experiences and the harmonization of intervention strategies at the subregional level. 

The specific objectives are to:

1. present the new WHO African Regional oral health strategy 2016 – 2025 and the manual, “Promoting oral health in Africa” in the context of noma prevention and control
2. stimulates the sharing of best practices through two cas studies: Niger and Senegal
3. discuss Countries’ progress reports on the implementation of their 2015-2017 three-year noma control action plans
4. develop a common strategy for efficient use of brochures and posters produced by WHO to improve early diagnosis and management of noma cases at primary health care level
5. discuss the issue of including noma in the list of  Negleted tropical diseases.