The Government of the Kingdom of Swaziland through the Ministry of Health intensifies efforts to make Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) neglected no more in Swaziland. The Ministry of Health with technical and financial support from the World Health Organization (WHO) successfully held a national high level advocacy meeting on Neglected Tropical Diseases. The meeting was held on the 1st of August 2014 at Mountain Inn Hotel in Mbabane.

Freetown, 1 August 2014 - The WHO Country Office in Sierra Leone on 1 August 2014 donated a consignment of assorted items worth US$38,000 to the Ministry of Health and Sanitation. The donation is part of WHO’s continued support to the government of Sierra Leone in the Ebola outbreak response. The various items included 3,000 Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs) to protect health workers particularly those that are directly involved in the management of cases in the treatment centres, the ambulance and burial teams. 

“It was great that Mauricio and I arrived the same day; we were able to share first, very shocking, impressions and to go through the process of adapting to difficult working conditions together,” says Dr Catherine Houlihan, an infectious disease doctor from the United Kingdom deployed through WHO to help respond to the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone.

For Catherine this is her first deployment in an outbreak setting; “On my first day, I felt shocked by the enormity of the challenges. The day after, I started to adapt.”

31 July 2014 -- The new joint US$ 100 million response plan is part of an intensified international, regional and national campaign to bring the outbreak under control. “The scale of the Ebola outbreak, and the persistent threat it poses, requires WHO and Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone to take the response to a new level, and this will require increased resources, in-country medical expertise, regional preparedness and coordination,” says WHO Director-General Dr Margaret Chan.

Abuja 31st July, 2014 - On 25th July, 2014, Nigeria reported its first imported case of the Ebola virus disease that later died in Lagos. The 40-year old victim, a Liberian and senior ECOWAS Official, was at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos from Monrovia en route Calabar City in Nigeria for the 8th ECOWAS Retreat of Heads of Offices meeting.

“When we first arrived at the village, things started well. We told people we’d come to explain about Ebola and to learn why they didn’t want medical teams to come to the village and help their families,” says Hina Teguiano, a young local volunteer who was part of the nine-person team that visited the village of Kolobengu on 14 July. “As we were talking with them, a car drove up, and that’s when things changed.” 

Freetown, 31 July 2014 - His Excellency President Dr Ernest Bai Koroma, President of the Republic of Sierra Leone made a visit to the Ebola Emergency Operational Centre (EOC) work station at the World Health Organization Country Office in Sierra Leone on 31 July 2014. The President made the visit to assess readiness of the EOC which is the leading Coordination Structure in the Ebola outbreak response in Sierra Leone. Membership of the EOC comprised of heads of strategic local and international development agencies including the United Nations agencies, MSF, and other partners.

Kampala, 31th July 2014:-  WHO has gone into contract with a local partner  Communication for Development Uganda (CDFU), a Ugandan based Non–Governmental Organization (NGO) who will implement the ANI Intervention. The target is to scale up the recommendations through a social and behavioral change communication strategy .

Monrovia 31 July 2014 – The Government of Liberia on yesterday launched the Operational Plan to accelerate the response to control the on-going outbreak of Ebola in the country, which requires $20.9 million to invest in the response for the next six months.

Abuja, 30th  July 2014 - Second leg of the quarterly Zonal meetings has been successfully conducted for the Northern and Southern zones between 21st-27th July, 2014 in Minna and Calabar respectively with the overriding objective of strengthening the monitoring and evaluation system in the IVE Unit of the WCO Nigeria, in response to the need for preparing the Country Office for Polio end-game and Legacy.