Yenagoa, 28 April 2019 -“We had not seen vaccination teams in our community for a very long time. Sometimes we have to stay for months without vaccinating our children, if we don’t take our children to the mainland to get them vaccinated”, says Mr. Atebakuro Oton George, a fisherman and father of five, residing at Itohono-ama settlement of Minibie ward of Bayelsa State.

“Now on weekly basis, health workers brave the Seas and visit our communities to vaccinate our children”, an elated Mr. George continues.

29 April 2019, Juba – To interrupt the transmission of the measles virus, the Ministry of Health for South Sudan, with support from the World Health Organization, UNICEF, IOM and other partners, have launched reactive measles campaigns to immunize children in affected locations and provide them with vitamin A supplementation.

To date, more than 310 582 children aged 6 months – 15 years have been vaccinated.

Global leaders met in September last year to set a roadmap for accelerated action to end TB in line with the sustainable development goals.  This year’s World TB Day theme ‘It’s time’ – puts the accent on the urgency to act on the commitments made by global leaders to:  scale up access to prevention and treatment; build accountability; ensure sufficient and sustainable financing including for research; promote an end to stigma and discrimination, and promote an equitable, rights-based and people-centered TB response.  Despite being declared a major p

The World Health Organization (WHO) in Namibia in collaboration with the Windhoek City Runners Club (WCRC) hosted the first ‘Walk/Run for Health’ event on Saturday, 27 April at Daan Viljoen police checkpoint. The event was held to celebrate World Health Day, which took place earlier this month, as well as the 71^st Anniversary of  WHO.

Kampala, 30th April 2019: - The Meeting on Strengthening Partnership for Improving Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) outbreak preparedness and readiness, opened in Kampala yesterday with a call to delegates to undertake frank discussions to unearth critical risk factors and challenges in the response and suggest feasible solutions to register concrete results.  

Gaborone, Botswana - 29 April 2019: The Government of Botswana, in conjunction with WHO technical  guidance and support from CDC Atlanta USA is currently hosting four SADC countries (Botswana, Namibia, Lesotho and Eswatini) to conduct a Public Health Regional Training on strengthening National Rapid Response Teams (RRT), running from 29th April to 3rd May, 2019, at Avani Resort Center in Gaborone.

The Ministry of Health and Social Services with support from WHO and UNFPA adapted the Clinical Handbook for women subjected to intimate partner violence and/or sexual violence.  The handbook will serve as a stepping stone for transforming the health sector to provide a comprehensive response to survivors of gender based violence.   The adaptation process involved consultation with health care providers, social workers, police officers and civil society organizations. 

 His Excellency the Vice President of the Republic of Ghana, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia on Wednesday, 24th April, 2019 launched Ghana’s largest drone delivery service at Omenako in the Eastern Region to improve healthcare delivery, especially in hard-to-reach areas.
The project, christened: “Fly to Save a life,” would use drones to operate 24 hours a day, throughout the week, from four distribution centres with each centre equipped with 30 drones to deliver essential medicines and blood products to 2,000 health facilities.

Rwanda organized its biannual Integrated Mother and Child Health Week from 23rd to 27th  April 2019. The Mother and Child week is organized twice a year and serves as an opportunity to scale up health services provision, particularly to the hard-to-reach, the unreached and the most vulnerable populations. The Ministry of Health in collaboration with Imbuto Foundation, WHO Country Office and other Partners are organizing a national campaign named "Baho Neza" (Health and Well-being) from April 01st to July 06th 2019.