By the time the public health officials reached a Maasai community not far from Nairobi, Julius Oloiboni had already mobilized everyone to protect themselves and others against COVID-19.
Read moreHauwa Ibrahim is unsure when she will see her family again. Two months ago, the 29-year-old nurse volunteered to work at a COVID-19 treatment centre in Nigeria’s capital Abuja. Worried she might put her family at risk of catching the virus, she opted to stay at the centre. Like her, many health workers lending a hand to the country’s battle against the pandemic have forgone time with family.
Read moreDr Fiona Braka holds one of the highest-stake roles in the African regional polio programme – supporting the Government of Nigeria in their fight to defeat wild poliovirus. She is the first woman to hold her position in Nigeria, and before that was the first female polio team lead in Ethiopia.
Read moreWhen a young man in his town died of a haemorrhagic fever, Fabien Impanda Boliko had to act fast. The 56-year-old laboratory technician in Mbandaka tested and identified the first case of the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s (DRC) 11th Ebola outbreak in the western Equateur province.
Read moreAt the entrance to the Centre de médecine tradi-moderne du village, a health centre offering conventional and herbal treatments, in Beni town, a painted mural shows a man and a woman washing their hands. “Plants are life, handwashing saves lives” a caption reads.
Read moreThe independent Africa Regional Certification Commission (ARCC), responsible for certifying the eradication of wild poliovirus in the World Health Organization (WHO) African Region, is set to make its final decision about the region’s wild poliovirus status in August 2020.
Read moreHumanitarian crises, including health emergencies affect men and women differently. As COVID-19 continues to spread in Africa, there are concerns over its impact on women and girls, with vulnerabilities feared to worsen as the pandemic overwhelms health systems.
Read moreAli Ngarba says his biggest worry about COVID-19 is that there is no vaccine yet. He shares a compound with three other families in Goudji, a neighbourhood in the Chadian capital N’Djamena, and tries to keep safe: he has set up a handwashing bucket at the doorstep and ventures out only occasionally and when necessary.
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