News Releases

Nine middle-income countries in Africa have agreed to work towards pooled procurement mechanisms by first sharing vital information on their vaccine purchasing practices, including the prices they pay and their suppliers. Sharing information and ultimately pooling their orders will better leverage their individual purchasing power and thus strengthen their vaccine security and increase their access to affordable life-saving vaccines.

The interministerial technical secretariat of the response to the Ebola outbreak, the Ministry of Health and their partners from the United Nations (the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and  the United Nations Emergency Ebola Response Operations (UNEERO)) condemn in the strongest possible terms the violence that took place last night in Lwemba in Ituri Province, in north-eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The second phase of an oral vaccination campaign to protect more than 835 000 people from cholera in the North Kivu Province of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) begins today. While North Kivu has been struggling with an outbreak of Ebola virus disease for more than a year, this north-eastern province is also endemic for cholera.

Universal access to Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) is one of the key components of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 3 and 5 and contributes to the achievement of all the other SDGs. Sadly however, in Africa the SRHR goals are those that made little progress during the MDG era where no country in the African Region achieved the target on universal access to reproductive health.

The African Academy of Sciences and WHO unveil strategic partnership to strengthen technology and innovations aimed at promoting good health and well-being in Africa.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo and its nine neighbouring countries endorse a joint framework to strengthen cross-border collaboration on preparedness and response to Ebola virus and other disease outbreaks.

To enhance capacities for timely confirmation and prompt response to emerging disease outbreaks, South Sudan is establishing molecular testing capacities for influenza and other high-threat infectious diseases like Ebola virus disease (EVD), Yellow Fever, Marburg virus disease (MVD) and Rift Valley Fever (RVF).

To curb smoking and the many diseases related to tobacco, Rwanda increased the tax on cigarettes. The country joins Benin, Cabo Verde, Cote d’Ivoire, Senegal and Togo in implementing WHO-supported tax reforms on cigarettes.

With President Uhuru Kenyatta leading the way, Kenya today joins an increasing number of African countries taking a vital step against a common cause of death among women – in the country and the region – by introducing the human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccine against cervical cancer into its routine immunization schedule.

Uganda is set to immunize more than 18 million children younger than 15 years against measles and rubella, which amounts to 43% of the country’s population. Among them, 8.2 million children younger than 59 months, or 20.5% of the population, will also receive the oral polio vaccine.