The Gambia News

Banjul, 15 June 2012 -- The WHO Country Office (WCO) concluded a two-day staff retreat at Seaport Residence Hotel in Bijilo, yesterday. The retreat, better described as a workshop, was held on 13 - 14 June 2012, and was attended by the WR, programme officers and two staff from the Country Support Unit (CSU).

The main objectives of the meeting were:

Banjul, 1 June 2012 -- “Smoking kills” “By smoking, you are committing suicide” “Say No to tobacco”. These were some of the slogans teachers and students of Brufut Lower Basic School (BLBS) and the local community sang as they took to the streets of Brufut village to commemorate World No-Tobacco Day.

“Move for Health Initiative”

Banjul, 25 May 2012 -- Hundreds of people from different walks of life - students, teachers, Ministry of Health and WHO staff, volunteers, media personnel, community and opinion leaders, men and women – took to the streets of Brufut town yesterday to participate in a five-kilometer walk marking the launching of “Move for Health Initiative”.

This initiative, conceived by SCANAID Senior Secondary School, is one of the bye-products of the recently concluded WHO Health Academy Project in the Gambia.

Banjul, 17 May 2012 -- The WHO Country Office (WCO) yesterday briefed the Gambian delegation to the 65th World Health Assembly (WHA). “Such a briefing session is now a tradition of the WCO to prepare country delegates to this important global WHO governing body”, Dr Thomas Sukwa, WHO Representative (WR) to the Gambia, reiterated in welcoming delegates to the WCO.

Banjul, 14 May 2012 -- The last week of April 2012 witnessed two important health events in the Gambia. The first was World Malaria Day and the second, a sub-regional laboratory training workshop on pneumococcal surveillance and pediatric bacterial meningitis.

Advocacy visit

The Gambia, a country in West Africa is preparing to introduce the New meningococcal Vaccine « MenAfriVac », by mid-november 2013. In preparation to this public health event, an advocacy mission was conducted in Banjul to meet with the national authorities and the stakeholders.

Banjul, 6 November 2013 -- The Gambia successfully concluded a second round of 2013 synchronized national immunization days against polio. An esti-mated 412613 children, aged 0 – 59 months, were targeted during the four- day exercise - Friday 25 to Monday 28 October 2013. Overall, 99.5% of the target population was immunized with marked im-provement registered in all the seven health regions.

The African Region is still dominated by very high prevalence of communicable diseases as well as high maternal and infant mortality in weak and fragmented health systems thus facing significant health challenges in spite of the multitude of stakeholders active in health.

Banjul, 02 may 2013 -- The Gambia observed World Malaria Day with series of activities including a press briefing, official statements and public sensitization on the national radio and television and the official launch in the Central River Region by the Hon. Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Bala Garba Jahumpa.

Banjul, 14 august 2013 -- The Ministry of Health and Social Welfare has, this afternoon, formally introduced the Rotavirus vaccine into the national immunization programme. This is the newest vaccine introduced into the national immunization programme and the eleventh since establishment of the Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI) in the late 1970s. It is also the third since 2009. Pneumococcal vaccine and the second dose of the measles vaccine were introduced in 2009 and 2012 respectively.