Dar es Salaam, 9 September 2015 - The Ministry of Health and Social Welfare with support from the World Health Organization, is hosting the Annual Conference for Regional and District Medical Officers to deliberate on how to strengthen health service delivery in the country.

9 September 2015 - Child mortality rates have plummeted to less than half of what they were in 1990, according to a new report released today. Under-five deaths have dropped from 12.7 million per year in 1990 to 5.9 million in 2015. This is the first year the figure has gone below the 6 million mark.

Epidemiological data

Bamako, 7 September 2015 – A case of circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 (cVDPV2) has been confirmed in Bamako, the capital and largest city of Mali. The country is on high alert after national authorities detected a paralysis case with onset 20 July 2015. The patient is a 19-month old child of Guinean nationality whose paralysis occurred 7 days prior to the child’s arrival in Bamako to seek health care. The last case of wild polio virus (WPV) in Mali dates back to June 2011 in Goundam, Timbuktu Region.

On Monday the 24th of August 2015, the United Nations Secretary-General (UNSG) Ban Ki-Moon visited Family Health Clinic, a primary Health Care facility located in Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC) which offers routine immunization on a daily basis. The clinic is among those benefiting from the Routine Immunization Intensification project aimed at reducing the number of unimmunized children in AMAC, with support from WHO.

Dar es Salaam, 4 September 2015 – An on-going large-scale cholera outbreak has left thirteen people dead and affected 815 people in Dar es Salaam, Morogoro, Pwani and Iringa regions in Tanzania. WHO has ramped up its emergency response to support Tanzania's Ministry of Health and Social Welfare (MOHSW) to prevent more cases and treat people who have contracted the water-borne disease. But additional resources are urgently needed to contain further spread of the disease.

Kampala, 4th September 2015; Uganda commemorated World Accreditation Day 2015 under the theme ‘Delivering Confidence in Health and Social Care’ with a focus on Laboratory Services and launched the National Accreditation Policy, 2014 at the Metropole Hotel in Kampala.

Pretoria, August 2015 - WHO has called on the global health community to urgently address gaps in prevention, diagnosis and treatment of malaria. South Africa has a Malaria Elimination Strategic Plan (MSP) which aims to achieve zero local malaria transmission in South Africa by 2018. With WHO country office assistance, the Mid-Term Review was held to assess the implementation of the interventions, strategies and activities in the three year period 2012/13-2014/15 of the current MSP and to propose changes required to achieve elimination of malaria in South Africa by 2018.

North West Province, 19-21 August 2015 - The WHO country office has been supporting the NDOH in developing and finalising the National Adherence Strategy on Chronic Diseases (HIV, TB & Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs). The strategy has been finalised and will be reviewed by the National Health Council in September. It was thus decided to work on a pilot implementation of this strategy. To this end, it was decided that orientation training was needed in some sites. Four provinces were identified with sites and controls in each of these relevant districts.

Today, 3 September 2015, WHO declares Liberia free of Ebola virus transmission in the human population. Forty-two days have passed since the second negative test on 22 July 2015 of the last laboratory-confirmed case. Liberia now enters a 90-day period of heightened surveillance.