Ethiopia News

Meemuna Sadam* is a public health expert in the Somali Region in Ethiopia. Together with her colleagues, she raises awareness and provides education on female genital mutilation (FGM) to communities and also conducts advocacy actions targeting religious leaders. 

Meemuna is also a victim of FGM. “I was only six years old when they cut and sewed me up. The pain was unbearable; I still remember the fear, pain and abandonment I felt.” In the Somali region of Ethiopia, girls usually experience FGM between the ages of 5-10 years. 

Hailu Sabagadis, Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) Officer at WHO Ethiopia, and his team in Benishangul Gumuz Region have been regularly providing onsite and remote technical support to multiple healthcare facilities in the region. Hailu assesses and monitors the facilities' IPC capabilities and proper implementation of COVID-19 and other infection prevention activities.

When her 11-month old son, Abdulnasir, refused to breastfeed or eat his food, Amina knew something was seriously wrong with him. He had had diarrhea, vomiting and fever for more than a week, but it was when he kept crying in pain, stopped feeding altogether and got very weak that she got alarmed and brought him to Gode Hospital in Somali Region.

On 31 January 2022, ETHIOPIA commemorated World Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTD) Day in Hawassa, Sidama Regional State in an event led by the Federal Ministry of Health (MoH) and attended by health partners and Sidama and SNNP regional health authorities. The Day was commemorated with the global theme, “Achieving health equity to end the neglect of poverty-related diseases”. This is the third World NTD Day commemoration and the first since the World Health Organization (WHO) endorsed 30 January as World Neglected Tropical Diseases Day.

A joint high-level mission led by the Ministries of Health and Agriculture and supported by the World Health Organization (WHO), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), joined by UNICEF, visited drought-affected woredas (districts) in Somali and Oromia regions on 21 and 22 February 2022 to reaffirm the commitment of the Government and the United Nations in Ethiopia to a robust drought disease outbreaks response.

A measles vaccination campaign was conducted in Ethiopia from February to March 2022 in SNNP, Somali and Oromia regions targeting more than half a million children aged between 6 months to 10 years. The campaign aimed to stop the spread of a measles outbreak reported from 12 woredas (districts) in three regions: seven woredas of SNNP, one woreda of Guji Zone in Oromia, and four woredas of Somali putting more than 650,000 children at risk.

17 April 2022, Addis Ababa –On 15 April 2022, Ethiopia kicked off the second-round polio campaign with type 2 novel oral polio vaccine (nOPV2) aiming to protect over 16 million under-five children from disability and death due to the ongoing polio outbreak in the country. The campaign is taking place on 15-18 April in all regions except Addis Ababa, Afar and Tigray, where it will be conducted at different later dates.