Accra, 30 June 2012 -- This year's African Regional Meeting of Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) Programme Managers ended on Saturday (30 June) in Accra, Ghana, with the adoption of a number of recommendations aimed at advancing the cause of the fight against NTDs in the region.

Accra, 28 June 2012 -- The annual meeting of Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) Programme Managers in the WHO African Region began on Thursday in Accra, the Ghanaian capital.

On Friday 29 June, 2012 -- World Health Organization Nigeria organized a polio briefing meeting for representatives of Development Partners in Abuja. The objectives of the meeting were to provide updates on the current polio situation globally, and in Nigeria; seek additional engagement and support from DPs for Nigeria’s intensified polio eradication efforts, and to identify any opportunities with ongoing humanitarian and/or other relevant development efforts.

Lilongwe: On 29 June 2012, in commemoration of 2012 World Health Day, the vice President Honorable Khumbo Kachali who is also the Minister of Health, led all civil servants at Capital Hill, the helm of government ministries, to demonstrate and emphasize the need to ‘practice what you preach’ in prevention of non-communicable diseases.

Accra, 25 June 2012 -- Ghana's Health Minister, Mr. Albin Bagbin, has called on African countries to support interventions to address Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) and improve coordination among all stakeholders in implementing NTD programmes.

A high-level Ministerial conference on health financing will take place in Tunis, Tunisia, on July 4-5, 2012.

With a view to improving child health, the Nigerian government has introduced pentavalent vaccine into her routine immunization schedule. Pentavalent vaccine is a combination of five vaccines-in-one that prevents diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, hepatitis b and haemophilus influenza type b, all through a single dose.

With this introduction, nearly 400,000 cases of haemophilus influenza type B would be prevented with about 27,000 lives saved annually in Nigeria.

Brazzaville, 20 June 2012 -- More than 100 experts, policy-makers and health leaders will gather in Accra, Ghana, from 25 to 27 June to discuss ways of scaling up interventions to control or eliminate Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) in the African Region of the World Health Organization (WHO).

In this issue:

- WHO donates to the New School of Medicine at the Copperbelt University

- WHO supports a demonstration course on the Afro Generic Training Package on Focused Antenatal Care (FANC)

- World No Tobacco Day in Zambia 31st May 2012

WHO News Zambia, June 2012

Harare, 18 June 2012 -- The Honourable Minister of Health and Child Welfare Dr. H. Madzorera, in conjunction with City Health Departments, UNICEF, WHO, and other partners, launched the National Immunization Days (NIDs) on 18th June in Harare.

NIDs are selected days when measles and polio vaccines as well as vitamin A supplements are given to children between the ages of 0 – 59 months and are extra doses which supplement and do not replace the doses received according to routine immunizations.