Addis Ababa - July 13, 2010 – Ethiopia launches H1N1 vaccination. In a ceremony held at the Gandhi Memorial Hospital, in Addis Ababa, His Excellency Dr. Kebede Worku – State Minister of Federal Ministry of Health (FMoH) – officially launched the H1N1 vaccination activities. This launching ceremony marked the beginning of a vaccination activity that will cover health workers and other essential staff (police, army, airport / immigration staff), as well as protect vulnerable groups (e.g. pregnant mothers) and school children to prevent the spread of H1N1 infection.

The Ministry of Health and Sanitation on Tuesday 20th July launched the start of a four day national Influenza A H1N1 immunisation campaign. The vaccination campaign will target about 600,000 people including health workers, pregnant women and children age 6-12 months and per-sons with chronic disease conditions.

To scale up the national mental health services Ministry of Health has finalized the national mental health strategic plan of action for 2010 - 2014 with the support of WHO Country Office.

The consensus building workshop held from 6 to 8 July 2010 brought together stakeholders from Ministry of Labour and Human Welfare, Ministry of Education, UNICEF, UNFPA, UNAIDS, College of Health Sciences, BIDHO Association (People living with HIV/AIDS) and other partners in health.

19 July 2010 -- Of the 5 million people are now receiving HIV treatment, 1.2 million started in 2009. This is the largest annual increase ever recorded. Another sign of progress is recent studies that show early HIV treatment, before people become ill because of weakened immunity, can reduce mortality by 20%.

Recent estimates of maternal mortality have shown that the WHO African region has made no important progress toward achieving the MDG target. To date 31 countries out of the 46 have a very high mortality ratio ranging from 550 to 100 per 100,000 live births. In Eritrea, there has been a marked reduction in maternal mortality from 998 per 100,000 live births in 1995 (EDHS) to 450 in 2005 (UN estimates).

Eritrea celebrated World blood donor day on the 13th of June 2010 under the theme “Let’s Increase the Number of New Blood Donors” adopted from the global theme “New Blood for the World”.

Blood Donors Day was marked in Eritrea for the 6th time this year organized with the active participation of the donors clubs coordinated by the National Blood Transfusion Center (NBTC).

The World Health Organization Director for Africa, Dr. Luis Gomes Sambo said the WHO is willing and ready to work with United Nations Agencies and other health development partners to support the Government of Lesotho (GoL) in addressing the issue of Human Resource for Health (HRH) in the Mountain Kingdom.

Ethiopia joined hands with the rest of the world to commemorate the World No Tobacco Day (WNTD) colorfully with weeklong exercises that came to an end with mass demonstration that brought together a number of people from all walks of life.

The event was done to create people’s awareness and to curb the use of tobacco products in the country, which has been on the increase in the 21st century. This year WNTD was successfully hosted by DACA here in Addis Ababa. 

Brazzaville, 14 June 2010 -- WHO Regional Director for Africa, Dr Luis Sambo, has called on the youth in the Region to heed the humanitarian call to donate blood in order to save lives of patients in need.

By heeding this call, he said, the youth of Africa will be bringing “new blood” to the world and contributing to ameliorating a public health problem which affects mainly children un-der five years of age and young mothers.

The focus of World Blood Donor Day 2010 is on Young Donors with the slogan “new blood for the world.”

Ethiopia joined hands with the rest of the world to commemorate the World No Tobacco Day (WNTD) colorfully with weeklong exercises that came to an end with mass demonstration that brought together a number of people from all walks of life.

The event was done to create people’s awareness and to curb the use of tobacco products in the country, which has been on the increase in the 21st century. This year WNTD was successfully hosted by DACA here in Addis Ababa.