News Releases

Brazzaville — To mark Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Day on 19 November, World Health Organization (WHO) in the African region launched the AFRO Geodatabase (AFRO GDB) to enhance the use of trusted administrative boundary data to strengthen geospatial governance and empower data-driven health decisions across Africa. 

Cervical cancer remains one of the major public health challenges in Africa, even though it is almost entirely preventable.

On Cervical Cancer Elimination Day of Action, celebrated on 17 November, we spoke with Dr Issimouha Dillé, Adviser on Cancer Control at the WHO Regional Office for Africa, to understand why this disease persists and how we can work together to eliminate it.

Nairobi – For years, frontline health workers in Kenya faced long delays in receiving payments for their work in vaccination campaigns. Cash-based systems often took more than two weeks, sometimes never reaching workers at all. The process was weighed down by high costs, risks, and lack of transparency, undermining morale and disrupting polio outbreak response. 

Yaounde ‒ For the first time ever, a circulating variant poliovirus type 3 (cVDPV3) was fully sequenced in Cameroon, marking a major milestone in Africa’s efforts to detect and respond  faster to polio outbreaks. 

Poliovirus has three types: 1, 2, and 3. Although wild polio type 3 was declared eradicated in 2019, variant type 3 can still appear where immunity is low, making quick detection and response essential to contain outbreaks.