News Releases

Inadequate investment and funding for tuberculosis (TB) control in Africa is jeopardizing the efforts to meet the global target of ending the disease by 2030, while the COVID-19 pandemic threatens to roll back progress made so far in the continent, an assessment by World Health Organization (WHO) finds.

With new COVID-19 cases significantly dropping, many countries are increasingly curtailing COVID-19 surveillance and quarantine measures. While the need to reopen economies and resume social life is important, the World Health Organization (WHO) is calling for caution and consideration of the risks involved. 

Hundreds of farmers in Migori County, Kenya will break free from risky tobacco farming and transition to producing more sustainable crops, through the Tobacco-Free Farms Project being launched today. 

Malawi will on Sunday launch the first round of vaccination campaigns against wild poliovirus type 1. More than 80 million doses will be administered to more than 23 million children under 5 years in the four-round vaccination drive in five southern African countries after Malawi declared an outbreak on 17 February—the first such case in the country in 30 years, and the first in Africa since the region was certified free of indigenous wild poliovirus in 2020. 

Africa’s COVID-19 vaccine uptake rose by 15% between January and February as several countries embarked on mass vaccination drives to expand coverage and protect populations against the adverse health impacts of the virus.

Nineteen-year-old Armande* recalls her disastrous first visit to a health centre. “It was awful,” says the teen from Kongo Central, in western Democratic Republic of the Congo. “I was younger then and looking for information on HIV, and the nurse there made fun of me in front of everyone because of my age.”

Disruptions to essential health services due to the COVID-19 pandemic are being felt broadly. As the world marks International Women’s Day, a new World Health Organization (WHO) analysis finds that women’s health services are far from being fully restored, with 40% of African countries reporting disruptions to sexual, reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health services.

One in five adults and one in 10 children and teenagers are projected to be obese by December 2023 in 10 high-burden African countries if no robust measures are taken to reverse the trends, a new World Health Organization (WHO) analysis shows.

One year since the COVAX Facility delivered the first COVID-19 vaccines to Africa, around 400 million doses have been administered – the region’s largest ever vaccine rollout in a single year. However, vaccination rates in the continent are the lowest in the world. To help bolster uptake, World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, and partners are supporting mass vaccination campaigns in 10 priority countries to reach 100 million people by the end of April 2022.