Ethiopia News

Addis Ababa, 07 March 2021 – Today, Ethiopia has received 2.184 million doses of the Astra Zeneca COVID-19 vaccine via the COVAX Facility.

WHO Emergency Medical Team (EMT) in collaboration with WHO Academy held the first Mass Casualty Management (MCM) training course in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on February 8–11, 2021. The training was facilitated in collaboration with the Ethiopian Ministry of Health (MoH) and WHO Ethiopia.  Thirty-one healthcare workers drawn from federal, regional, and private hospitals participated in the training.

Ethiopia has launched a national salt reduction media campaign, “Reduce your salt consumption habit by half!”, as part of the effort to reduce the incidence of cardiovascular diseases in the population.

Addis Ababa, 16 February 2021 – The World Health Organization and Canada signed an agreement to ensure functional health services in the context of COVID-19 in Ethiopia.  Through this agreement, Canada will provide WHO a grant amounting to 9.9 million Canadian dollars to strengthen the primary health care capacity to deliver essential health services, particularly for women, girls and vulnerable populations, while maintaining an effective response to COVID-19 to avoid additional preventable sickness and death among the Ethiopian population.
 

A yellow fever vaccination campaign targeting 700 000 people in Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples (SNNP) and Oromia regions was conducted in November 2020, achieving 93% of the target.  The campaign aimed to stop the spread of an outbreak that was first reported in Enor-Ener Woreda in Gurage Zone of SNNPR by vaccinating eligible age groups in 12 woredas (districts), one of them in Oromia, that were identified as potential epicenters of the outbreak.

Schools in Ethiopia are reopening after nine months of closure following the confirmation of the first COVID-19 case in the country in March 2020. Since March, the disease has affected over 100 000 people, killed nearly two thousand, and disrupted normal life activities including education. However, in September 2020, the Government lifted the national state of emergency, which was in place since March of the same year, relaxing some preventive measures initially instituted to curb the spread, and paving the way to plan for safe school reopening.