Photo Stories

Goma –  More than 6 million people have been displaced by recurrent armed violence and insecurity in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. Since the beginning of 2023, violence has escalated in six provinces – Ituri, Kasai, Mai-Ndombe, North Kivu, South Kivu, and Tshopo – forcing nearly one million people to flee their homes. 

Harare – Free surgery camps by Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Health and Child Care are providing relief to children in communities across the country for common conditions that may be out of reach for many families.

Mbabane – Eswatini has made great strides in its response to HIV. New HIV infections have fallen steadily over the years, from 14 000 in 2010 to 4800 in 2020, and are projected to drop to 4300 by the end of 2023. 

Kampala ‒ In Uganda, women are disproportionately affected by HIV. Out of 1.4 million people living with the disease, 860 000 are women and 80 000 are children.

As part of the drive to reduce the number of babies born with HIV, Uganda has a robust prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) programme. It involves following up women of reproductive age living with, or at risk of acquiring, HIV from their reproductive years, throughout pregnancy and to the end of the breastfeeding period.

Addis Ababa ‒ Recent disease surveillance findings from more than 4000 health centres across Ethiopia have shown a rising trend in cases of antimicrobial resistance, which occurs when pathogens change over time and no longer respond to medicines. For instance, resistance by the bacteria that causes typhoid surged nearly nine-fold to 87% of cases in 2019 from 10% in 2006. Equally, strains of infection-causing E. coli bacteria are showing increasing resistance to stronger antibiotics.

Dar es Salaam - Far from being “fault-finding” missions, polio Outbreak Response Assessments offer an opportunity to build country capacity for disease surveillance and preparedness, one health facility at a time, says Sambo Godwin Ishaku, logistics and cold chain officer with World Health Organization (WHO) in Tanzania .

N’Djamena – Around 5.4 million children in Chad were recently vaccinated against polio in a broad and synchronised campaign. Carried out with support from World Health Organization (WHO) and Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) partners, the immunisation drive included neighbouring Cameroon, Niger and the Central African Republic.

In Chad, where polio was detected in 2019 after no cases were reported for six years, efforts were made to ensure communities living in hard-to-reach locations, such as nomadic populations, were not left behind.