Featured news

In the epicentre of the Ebola outbreak, in the city of Beni in North Kivu, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Democratic of the Republic of the Congo’s Health Ministry adopted a strategy once used during the Ebola outbreak in West Africa to simplify vital work of monitoring contacts of patients.

The last Ebola patient in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) was discharged today from a treatment centre in the north-eastern town of Beni. With no more confirmed cases, a 42-day countdown to declaring the end of the world’s second-deadliest Ebola epidemic began on 2 March.

Senegal today reported its first case of COVID-19, becoming the fourth country in Africa to confirm the virus. The patient is a French national and a resident of Senegal who returned to Dakar on 26 February.

In November 2019, a health care associated Lassa Fever infection in Tonkolili District led to the onset of cases of the disease and death including healthcare workers. The event occurred when two patients presented at the Masanga Hospital with fever and other complications and were treated for their conditions but subsequently died. The cause of their deaths proved to be Lassa Fever, which later spread to three other people including healthcare workers with one additional death

Sierra Leone has commenced the process of developing a National School Health Policy and Strategy to create a safe, healthy school environment for learning with the aim to improve social inclusion and sustainable human capital development. The process is being coordinated by an interministerial core group led by the Ministry of Health and Sanitation. The World Health Organization in collaboration with other United Nations agencies are providing strategic technical assistance to the government for the development of these national documents with funding from the British Government through DFID.