Nigeria News

26 August 2016 - As the preparations for the August outbreak response (OBR) to the detection of two (2) wild polio viruses in Borno State intensify, the five (5) implementing states of Adamawa, Borno, Gombe, Taraba and Yobe, in collaboration WHO and other partners have commenced the implementation of strategic activities to ensure quality campaign and increased access to children in trapped and susceptible populations living in the region.

WHO in collaboration with the Ministry of Health (MOH) and State Ministry of Health, Borno trained 28 community resource persons (CORPs) from newly liberated areas on Integrated Management of Childhood Illness including handwashing, breastfeeding and malnutrition screening.

The WHO team visited Monguno Local Government Area (LGA) to determine the feasibility of expanding the Early Warning Alert and Response System (EWARS) and conduct rapid health facility assessments in Monguno LGA.

Maiduguri, 12 September 2016 - The World Health Organization (WHO) has supported the Borno State Ministry of Health (SMOH) to establish Early Warning Alert and Response System (EWARS) by training  over 80 health professionals.

EWARS is a WHO disease surveillance, alert and response initiative for early  detection and containment of  disease outbreaks in humanitarian emergency settings.

Abuja, 21 September 2016 - The scope of the second polio outbreak response (OBR) to the recently detected wild polio virus type 1 (WPV1) in Borno State has been expanded and different strategies employed to reach eligible children in Nigeria. The immunization campaign which commenced on 17 September, 2016 is targeting 31,540,054 children in 18 states across northern Nigeria.

Maiduguri, 28 September 2016 - In response to the detection of wild polio viruses (WPV) in Borno in August 2016 after more than two years of maintaining a polio-free status, the government of Nigeria declared the outbreak as a national public health emergency. Equally, the governments of Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad and Niger declared a regional public health emergency for the Lake Chad sub-region.

Following the declaration in Nigeria, plans were made to involve the military and civilian Joint Task Force (JTF) in accessing children in very vulnerable areas.

September 2016 – Health Sector partners are urgently scaling-up the emergency health response to the humanitarian crisis in north east Nigeria where some 3.7 million people are in need of health assistance. A Health Sector Coordination team was deployed to Maiduguri to support the Ministry of Health in the coordination of the health sector response. 17 partners are actively engaged with government authorities to strengthen coordination of resources and emergency response.

3 October 2016 - Polio transition planning simulation exercise was conducted in Abuja on 27-28 September, 2016. The exercise reviewed output of polio asset mapping, especially personnel across ten polio programme main functional areas.

4 October 2016- The World Health Organization (WHO) is implementing a Human Resource for Health (HRH) project on ‘Enhancing the ability of frontline health workers to improve health in Nigeria’ with funding from Global Affairs Canada (GAC). The project supports the Federal Ministry of Health FMOH) to strengthen human resources for health at Federal, Bauchi and Cross River States.

6 October 2016, Borno, Nigeria – In response to the critical health needs of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Borno state, the World Health Organization (WHO) through the State Ministry of Health has delivered emergency medical supplies to Mafa and Dikwa IDP camps, two of the 15 areas liberated this year that host more than 75,000 internally displaced persons (IDP).

7 October 2016 - The World Health Organization is supporting the State Minsitry of Health in Borno State to deploy community resource persons (CORPs) trained on community integrated management of childhood Illness (cIMCI) and provision of integrated community case management of childhood illnesses (iCCM) to liberated areas of Borno.