WHO expands health services support for vulnerable populations in the northeast

Maiduguri – 9 March, 2023 - The humanitarian support provided by the World Health Organization (WHO) in northeast Nigeria has continued to aid the displaced and vulnerable populations with access to emergency life-saving health services. 

Falmata Bukar, a 60-year-old woman residing in Dikwa Local Government Area (LGA), in Borno state, is glad to be alive after contracting cholera in December 2022. 

Vaccination against COVID-19 protects other people- survivor       

Abuja, 7 March, 2023 - “Being infected with COVID-19 is not an experience I wish to relive or wish on others yet to contract the disease, which was the reason I took the COVID-19 vaccine as soon as it was available to the public because protecting myself is protecting my loved ones,” says Yecenu Sesetu, a journalist in the Federal Capital Territory ( FCT, Abuja), Nigeria. 

Narrating her experience, Ms Sesetu says she contracted COVID-19 in June 2020, when the country witnessed its first wave of the pandemic. 

Experts accede to Nigeria’s progress, highlight areas of focus for maintaining polio...

The 39th Expert Review Committee (ERC) for Polio Eradication and Routine Immunization has expressed optimism that the Nigerian programme is on course to stop the transmission of the circulating Variant Polio Virus (cVPV2) with ‘impressive progress’ recorded.

The ERC meets periodically to evaluate progress toward the attainment of a polio-free Nigeria. The monitoring body comprising global and local experts on polio eradication guides the government and partners on how they can interrupt the residual risk of all forms of poliovirus and boost routine immunization in the country.

WHO scales up emergency response to reach displaced vulnerable populations in north-...

Maiduguri, 15 February, 2023 - Raising from the recently concluded 12th Joint Operations Review (JOR) on humanitarian support in the northeast, the World Health Organization (WHO) is  widening  its emergency health response to reach displaced vulnerable populations in the region.

Already, the agency leads international action to expand universal health coverage and coordinates health emergency responses globally.

Prevention is better than cure – Bayelsa state vaccinates residents against Yellow f...

Yenagoa, 14 February, 2023 - It was between 11 am and noon on a recent Wednesday when health workers with their Geostyle boxes filled with the Yellow fever (YF) vaccines got to Kpansia area of Yenagoa Local Government Area (LGA), Bayelsa State. 

Having lost a sibling to YF in 1996, Tarekebi Ebi-Jones, a 40-year-old single mother of two was waiting patiently for her turn to get her children vaccinated against the disease. 

In Nigeria, stakeholders  are not lowering their guards against all  forms of poliov...

Lagos – 14 February 2023 - Alhaji Safejo Amogbon (fondly called Baba – Father in the Yoruba language) is an octogenarian (89 years). notwithstanding his age,  he still mobilizes people in his community (Surulere-Safejo,  Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti State) to present their children for vaccination. 

He is one of the community’s pillars of support on health and education, and he leverages his years of experience to educate parents about the importance of vaccination, especially against poliovirus. 

In Nigeria, boosting viral hepatitis awareness and treatment

Abuja, 8 February, 2023 - Four months before her wedding and on the eve of starting a new job, Dada Titilope went in for a routine medical check. It was then that the 36-year-old resident of Ile-Ife Osun State in Southwestern Nigeria discovered that she had hepatitis B.

“I was very scared,” Titilope recalls, describing the horrors she read online about the disease. “I thought it was a death sentence.”

She considered calling off the wedding. But her fiancé and family wouldn’t hear of it, encouraging her instead to focus on staying well. 

The 12th Joint Operations Review on humanitarian support to North-east begins in Bor...

Borno, 6 February 2023 - The 12th Joint Operations Review (JOR) on humanitarian support to the northeast commenced on 6 February 2023, in Maiduguri, Borno State. 

The 3-day meeting (6-8 February) is the 12th in a series of its kind, since the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2016, declared the humanitarian situation in the northeast at grade 3, owing to its gravity and impact on public health that put intense pressure on healthcare services in the affected communities.