As her bus approached the town of Masi Manimba, Rosette Mboma heard a local radio announcement for free measles vaccinations for children the following day.
The tenth epidemic in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) officially began in August 2018. A year later, as of 10 September 2019, 3 091 cases had been confirmed, 2 074 of them had died, while 938 survived. The city of Goma, is highly vulnerable due to the huge population movement between the epidemic areas and Goma, with more than 5 000 travellers a day.
Kasika is one of the poorest neighbourhoods in Goma, the largest city in the North Kivu Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). It was in Kasika that Goma’s first case was detected.
“I put my feet on the ground and wiggled my toes. It felt strange to touch the ground for the first time in weeks. Slowly, I stood up, holding the hand of the nurse. I held my swollen belly and smiled.” That was the moment Rachel Kahuko Kavugho began to let herself believe that she might survive Ebola “and that the baby in my belly might get to live”.
It was past midnight when the ringing phone shook Manuel Raimundo from deep sleep in his Praia City home with an emergency unlike any he had ever experienced.
“Alert, alert – alert, alert!” shouted a colleague from Fogo Island, some 93 km away.
Standing in front of her house, Kavira Kasomo chats with Léa Kanyere as if they are old friends. Kanyere shows Kasomo something on her mobile phone that makes her smile. Then Kanyere lends a hand as Kasomo hangs out her laundry.
Flash flooding has created a humanitarian emergency in areas of north-eastern Nigeria already complicated by insurgency, internally displaced persons (IDPs) and a fragile health system. Now rising is the threat of water-related diseases, such as cholera and acute watery diarrhoea, which are easily spread through contaminated floodwater.
A wooden boat sways idyllically in a marsh of the Malagarasi River where it begins from an eastern mouth of the great Lake Tanganyika, Africa’s deepest lake and the world’s longest lake. Along the river, muscled men pull loaded bicycles under the scorching sun. This port in Ilagala village in Kigoma Region idles in daytime and bustles with activity at night.
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. Given its critical roles therefore, WHO/AFRO is implementing a new four-year initiative, launched on 9 January 2019, to enhance existing efforts for reducing needless deaths from pregnancy in the region focusing on the provision of comprehensive Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) services, within the Universal Health Coverage (UHC) framework, especially for the most vulnerable populations, including those living in humanitarian settings.
The pilgrims sometimes come by the thousands. They come by foot, by vehicle and by air to the many churches and monasteries scattered around the once ancient Christian kingdom of Ethiopia. They seek piety in their communing, but it is in the very density of their shared pilgrimage that dangerous diseases like cholera can thrive – if appropriate conditions are not prepared for them.
