News Releases

Johannesburg, April 29, 2022 – The African Region accounted for 66% of the 303,000 maternal deaths recorded globally in 2017. 

To address this situation, WHO in collaboration with UNFPA, UNICEF and partners supports Member States to ensure that all women and girls have access to quality and timely health services, particularly during pregnancy, childbirth, and after delivery, leaving no one behind.

Brazzaville – Africa is witnessing a surge in outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases over the past year.
Almost 17 500 cases of measles were recorded in the African region between January and March 2022, marking a 400% increase compared with the same period in 2021. Twenty African countries reported measles outbreaks in the first quarter of this year, eight more than that in the first three months of 2021.

Brazzaville/Kinshasa — The Democratic Republic of the Congo today kicked off Ebola vaccination in Mbandaka, the capital city of Equateur Province in the north-west, to halt the spread of the virus following an outbreak which has claimed two lives since 21 April.

Brazzaville/Kinshasa, 23 April 2022 – The health authorities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo today declared an outbreak of Ebola after a case was confirmed in Mbandaka, a city in the north-western Equateur Province. This is the third outbreak in the province since 2018.

Brazzaville – Africa is experiencing its longest-running decline in COVID-19 infections since the onset of the pandemic. Recorded weekly cases have fallen for the past 16 weeks, while deaths have dropped for the last eight.

Brazzaville – Researchers in Botswana and South Africa have detected new sub-lineages of the Omicron variant of the SARS-CoV-2 and are carrying out further investigations to fully understand crucial traits such as infectivity and virulence.

Accra/Brazzaville – Noncommunicable diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular diseases and diabetes are increasingly becoming the main cause of mortality in sub-Saharan Africa, where the diseases were responsible for 37% of deaths in 2019, rising from 24% in 2000 largely due to weaknesses in the implementation of critical control measures including prevention, diagnosis and care. This comes on the eve of a high-level heads of state and health leaders meeting in Ghana to find ways of accelerating progress against noncommunicable diseases.

Brazzaville – Climate-related health emergencies are on the rise in Africa, accounting for more than half of public health events recorded in the region over the past two decades, a new analysis by World Health Organization (WHO) shows.

The analysis found that of the 2121 public health events recorded in the African region between 2001 and 2021, 56% were climate-related. The region is witnessing an increase in climate-linked emergencies, with 25% more climate-related events recorded between 2011 and 2021 compared with the previous decade.