The Government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria officially Released the Results of its Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS) on July 11, 2013.  The Honourable Minister of Health of Nigeria, Prof C.O Onyebuchi Chukwu Released the Report on behalf of the President, Dr Goodluck Ebele Jonathan. GATS is a standard global  survey of adults aged 15 years of age or older that was conducted to monitor adult tobacco use and exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke in order to be able to effectively  track  tobacco control interventions.

Lesotho conducted a training on the OneHealth Tool from 1st-5th July. This invaluable tool will be used for the costing of strategic plans, beginning with the Health Sector Strategy 2012-2017 and the Health Research Strategy 2012-2017.

The training took place over five days at Ka Pitseng Lodge, Berea. A total of 28 participants were trained, including 23 Ministry of Health staff, 3 from the WHO, 1 from UNICEF and 1 from the National University of Lesotho. The facilitators were Mr. Emeka Nsofor, a WHO consultant, and Dr. Benjamin Nganda, from the WHO Intercountry Support Team.

The Lesotho Ministry of Health, with assistance from the World Health Organization, recent-ly conducted a National Train the Trainers workshop on Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response (ISDR). The training took place over five days, at Teyateyaneng in Berea, with 22 participants and 5 facilitators involved. The surveillance training was based on the recently released second edition of the IDSR technical guidelines.The two main objectives were:

On 5th of July, 2013, the United Republic of Tanzania became one of the first five African countries to complete the national Tuberculosis prevalence survey.

World blood Donor Day was commemorated on June 14th in Maseru District. This year is the 10th anniversary of the institution of World Blood Donor Day and was celebrated under the theme: “Every blood donation is a gift of life”.

Lesotho has a strong blood donation service and chose to mark the 10th anniversary with a ceremony at the Victoria Hotel, in Maseru, congratulating the contributions by blood donors across the country throughout the years.

30 June 2013 – The new WHO guidelines recommend starting HIV treatment earlier, with simpler and safer regimens to save more lives and prevent more new infections. This move could avert an additional 3 million deaths and prevent 3.5 million more new HIV infections between now and 2025.

The WHO Country Representative to Uganda, Dr. Wondemagegnehu Alemu, received on Friday, 21 June 2012, a team of consultants from EnCompass LLC (USA), who are in the country to evaluate the WHO Gates Africa Tobacco Control Project in Uganda. This is the second annual appraisal for the project, which was launched back in 2011, with the objective to support African governments arrest the growing tobacco use epidemic in the African Region.

On the 19th of June, 2013 -- the WHO Country Office handed over to the Ministry of Health Zanzibar vehicles and medical equipment to strengthen provision of Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (MNCH), Immunization and district health services in Zanzibar.

The items worth total of USD 122,310 handed over included: 3 vehicles, 11 refrigerators, 200 fridge tags and 1000 freeze tags, laboratory supplies, 50 Blood pressure measuring sets and 50 delivery kits.

As a way of leading by example, WHO Country Office staff donated blood to the Uganda Blood Transfusion Service in commemoration of World Blood Donor day 2013.

They were led by the WHO Country Representative Dr Wondimagegnehu Alemu in an exercise that was conducted at the office. Overall, about 30 staff volunteered and donated blood which is more than 75% turn up. Recruitment of donors is an on-going activity required to maintain regular blood stocks in all health facilities.

Inside this issue:

1 About this Special issue

2 Maternal Death Surveillance and Response towards achiev-

4 International Day of Midwives

5 The WHO Representative visits The Somali Region

7 The Director of the HIV Department in WHO meets with the WHO country office in Ethiopia

Ethiopia Newsletter Bulletin 06, – June 2013