BANJUL, 09 August 2010: The Ministry of Health and Social Welfare in collaboration with WHO and other partners recently concluded a nation-wide vaccination campaign against Influenza A H1N1. About 89.7% of the people targeted were vaccinated during the five-day exercise, covering the period 26 - 30 July 2010.

The campaign aimed at reaching 10% of the country’s population, targeting mainly health workers, pregnant women, diabetics, the chronically ill and children aged between 10 and 12 years.

BANJUL, 10 August 2010: The World Health Organization Country Office (WCO) and the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare (MoHSW) in collaboration with the United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA) have embarked on a nationwide advocacy campaign for reproductive health.

The first leg of this exercise, targeting the Technical Advisory Committees (TACs) at the Regional Governors Offices throughout the country, kicked off on Wednesday, 4th August 2010.

Windhoek, 12 August 2010 -- The Ministry of Health and Social Services (MoHSS) has announced the end of the Influenza H1N1 (2009) pandemic, following the World Health Organization’s (WHO) declaration of the end of the pandemic on 10 August 2010.

Addis Ababa - July 13, 2010 – Ethiopia launches H1N1 vaccination. In a ceremony held at the Gandhi Memorial Hospital, in Addis Ababa, His Excellency Dr. Kebede Worku – State Minister of Federal Ministry of Health (FMoH) – officially launched the H1N1 vaccination activities. This launching ceremony marked the beginning of a vaccination activity that will cover health workers and other essential staff (police, army, airport / immigration staff), as well as protect vulnerable groups (e.g. pregnant mothers) and school children to prevent the spread of H1N1 infection.

The Ministry of Health and Sanitation on Tuesday 20th July launched the start of a four day national Influenza A H1N1 immunisation campaign. The vaccination campaign will target about 600,000 people including health workers, pregnant women and children age 6-12 months and per-sons with chronic disease conditions.

The Ministry of Health and Sanitation has launched a survey report in Free-town that established high prevalence of risk factors for Non-Communicable Diseases (NCD) in Sierra Leone. The STEPwise survey, is a WHO standard-ized methods for collecting, analyzing and disseminating data on NCDs sur-veillances and was conducted in November 2009. The World Health Organisa-tion provided technical and financial support for conducting the survey.

"The Gambia Cares: No Woman should die giving Life"

Banjul, 26 July 2010: After several months of intensive advocacy, the Gambia finally launched the African Union Campaign on Accelerated Reduction of Maternal Mortality in Africa (CARMMA), on Saturday, 24 July 2010, with the slogan “The Gambia Cares: No Woman should die during giving Life”.

The event was launched at the Kanifing Municipal Council Grounds.

To scale up the national mental health services Ministry of Health has finalized the national mental health strategic plan of action for 2010 - 2014 with the support of WHO Country Office.

The consensus building workshop held from 6 to 8 July 2010 brought together stakeholders from Ministry of Labour and Human Welfare, Ministry of Education, UNICEF, UNFPA, UNAIDS, College of Health Sciences, BIDHO Association (People living with HIV/AIDS) and other partners in health.

19 July 2010 -- Of the 5 million people are now receiving HIV treatment, 1.2 million started in 2009. This is the largest annual increase ever recorded. Another sign of progress is recent studies that show early HIV treatment, before people become ill because of weakened immunity, can reduce mortality by 20%.

Recent estimates of maternal mortality have shown that the WHO African region has made no important progress toward achieving the MDG target. To date 31 countries out of the 46 have a very high mortality ratio ranging from 550 to 100 per 100,000 live births. In Eritrea, there has been a marked reduction in maternal mortality from 998 per 100,000 live births in 1995 (EDHS) to 450 in 2005 (UN estimates).