News Releases

Africa’s largest polio vaccination campaign since 2020 kicks off today in three West and Central African countries, in a combined effort by national health authorities to immunise a total 21 million children under the age of five.

From humanitarian crises triggered by conflict to climate-change induced disasters, Africa deals with over 100 disease outbreaks every year.

At the Seventy-sixth World Health Assembly, African governments represented by Ministers of Health, in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Africa (WHO) and Amref Health Africa have launched a regional initiative to tackle health impacts of climate change in Africa. This is an effort to harness the power of collaboration among countries and stakeholders through experience sharing and collective action in climate adaptation and mitigation.

Fewer than a third of people living with hypertension in the African region are on treatment, and only about 12% have the life-threatening condition under control, an analysis by World Health Organization (WHO) shows.

Sierra Leone today became the second African country, and the fifth globally, to launch a review of its health emergency preparedness and response capacity to identify gaps and reinforce measures against health shocks.

An estimated 33 million children will need to be vaccinated in Africa between 2023 and 2025 to put the continent back on track to achieve the 2030 global immunization goals that include reducing morbidity and mortality from vaccine-preventable diseases, an analysis by World Health Organization (WHO) finds.

The African region is recording around 4% annual decline rate in tuberculosis (TB) cases. Although the rate is double the global pace, the region risks missing major milestones and targets to end the disease if efforts are not scaled up rapidly.

The devastation by Tropical Cyclone Freddy is exposing major health risks in the hardest-hit southern Africa countries where emergency response efforts are being ramped up to provide relief to affected communities. 

Equatorial Guinea’s Ministry of Health has confirmed eight more cases of Marburg, bringing the number of confirmed cases to nine since the outbreak of the viral haemorrhagic fever was declared on 13 February.

Tanzania today confirmed its first-ever cases of Marburg Virus Disease after laboratory tests were carried out following reports of cases and deaths in the country’s north-west Kagera region.