Programmes and Clusters News

18 April 2018 | Emergencies

Getting ready for Africa’s next major health emergency

It was August 2014 and Lieutenant (Dr) Boie Jalloh was in the second week of his medical internship at the 34th Military Hospital in Freetown, Sierra Leone. The capital city had just recorded its first cases of Ebola and despite his inexperience, the 30-year old doctor was instructed to work in the hospital’s makeshift Ebola treatment unit.

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26 March 2018 | Lassa Fever

WHO: Nigeria’s Lassa fever outbreak is slowing, but remains a concern

WHO: Nigeria’s Lassa fever outbreak is slowing, but remains a concern.After nearly 400 confirmed infections and 100 deaths, the spread of Lassa fever in Nigeria is beginning to slow but the epidemic is far from contained, the World Health Organization and the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) have warned. NCDC’s latest data shows that the number of new confirmed and probable cases has been falling for five consecutive weeks, indicating that public health measures are proving effective, but more infections are expected until the end of the dry season, as the viral haemorrhagic fever is endemic to the area. Between 1 January and 25 March 2018, the NCDC reported 394 laboratory confirmed cases. There were 18 new confirmed cases in the last reporting week (19-25 March 2018), compared to 54 confirmed cases a month earlier (19-25 February 2018). 

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