Malabo (Equatorial Guinea), 30 August 2010 -- African countries have been urged to embrace and use e-Health -- defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as the cost-effective and secure use of information and communication technologies (ICT) for health and health–related fields - with a view to contributing to strengthening their health systems and improving health outcomes.

Malabo (Equatorial Guinea) 30 August 2010 -- Significant progress has been made in immunization coverage and efforts to eradicate polio in the African Region, but challenges remain and immediate remedial actions need to be taken.

This assessment of the status of routine immunization and polio eradication efforts in the African Region is contained in a technical document being discussed today by the 60th Session of the WHO Regional Committee for Africa taking place from 30 August to 3 September in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea.

Harare, 24 Aug.2010. In a move that is aimed at addressing the 3 pillars of health systems in Zimbabwe; health workforce, leadership and governance, and technologies; WHO donated to the University of Zimbabwe ’ s College of Health Sciences Library,

Brazzaville/Malabo, 27 August 2010 -- The sixtieth session of the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Committee for Africa will take place from 30 August to 3 September in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea.

27 August 2010, Addis Ababa -- The WHO Ethiopia Country Office in collaboration with the Ethiopian Federal Ministry of Health (FMOH) convened a half day consultative meeting to deliberate on the WHO Global Health Sector Strategy for HIV/AIDS: 2011 – 2015.

The meeting brought together a wide section of stakeholders from FMOH, UN Agencies, NGOs, PLWHA Associations, bilateral and multi lateral agencies among others. 

One of the targets of the Millennium Development Goals is to reduce child mortality by two third between 1990 and 2015. According to the 2008 assessment of countdown to 2015, Eritrea is on track to meet this goal, with consistent progress in reducing child deaths with an average annual reduction of around 4% over the last decade.

Still, infant and under5 mortality rates in Eritrea are considered high in reference to the MDG 4 target, which is 49/1000 Live Births by 2015.

Harare, 19 August 2010. Zimbabwe joined the rest of the world in commemorating World Humanitarian Day and to appreciate the work done by humanitarian workers throughout the world. In an event that was attended by the Government of Zimbabwe, national and international NGOs, and many humanitarian workers, the outstanding work by humanitarian workers in Zimbabwe was appreciated by all speakers.

The Pharmacy Board of Sierra Leone started a two day training workshop on Drug Safety Monitoring for healthcare providers in Freetown on 11 August 2010. The training is aimed at improving surveillance, monitoring and reporting practices of healthcare providers on the adverse reaction of pharmaceutical products.

The world Health Organisation Country Office in Sierra Leone has donated several assorted medical supplies and essential items worth USD 160,000 to the Ministry of Health and Sanitation.

The items included anthropometric tools to be used to strengthen nutrition surveillance, life saving protocols and guidelines to improve obstetric care, drugs for integrated treatment of NTDs, motor bikes to strengthen mobility of supervisors to enhance immunization programme and computers with accessories to improve data management capacity.

This year’s theme, “Just 10 steps: The Baby Friendly Way”, emphasizes on the promotion of full practice of all the ten steps by all Maternity Services set out in the WHO/UNICEF joint statement for “Protecting, promoting and supporting breastfeeding: the special role of maternity services.”

The Innocenti Declaration in 1990 called upon the world to fully implement the Ten Steps in all maternities by 1995. Twenty years later, more than 150 countries have Baby-friendly hospitals that have implemented the Ten Steps.