Geneva, 6 April 2016 - The number of people living with diabetes has almost quadrupled since 1980 to 422 million adults, with most living in developing countries. Factors driving this dramatic rise include overweight and obesity, WHO announced ahead of World Health Day.

The Director-General of WHO, Dr Margaret Chan, arrived today in Angola’s capital Luanda for a two-day visit to assess the situation of the current outbreak of yellow fever virus.

Since December 2015, Angola has been grappling with a yellow fever outbreak, which has infected more than 490 people and killed 198. The outbreak, which was first reported in the capital city Luanda, has since spread to 6 of the country’s 18 provinces.

Update from the field
4 April 2016

WHO and Ministry of Health teams in Liberia and Guinea are investigating the origins of transmission in Liberia’s latest flare-up after learning that a woman who died from Ebola in Liberia last week had recently travelled from Guinea with her three young children.

04 April 2014, Accra Ghana - On 7 April, 1948, the World Health Organization's Constitution came into force - a date now celebrated every year as World Health Day (WHD). It is the day that WHO was established. This year, the World Health will focus on ways to halt the rise of diabetes worldwide.

As a way to "stay super “and "beat diabetes", WHO in in collaboration with the Ministry of Health, Ghana Health Service and the Diabetes Association of Ghana organized health walk on Saturday 02 April 2016 a head of the WHD celebrations to be held on 7 April 2016.

Luanda, 2 April 2016 - The Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Dr Margaret Chan, and the Regional Director for Africa, Dr Matshidiso Moeti, will be in Luanda, from 2 to 5 April 2016, for a working visit.

Brazzaville, Congo, 5-7 April, 2016
Creating a New vision and Blueprint for a strengthened AVAREF
 

Heads of National Regulatory Authorities and National Ethics Committees/Research Policy Departments and other regulatory experts from countries in the WHO African Region will meet in Brazzaville, Congo from 5-7 April, 2016 to prepare a new vision and blueprint for the African Vaccine Regulatory Forum (AVAREF).

WHO statement 
1 April 2016

Lab results confirm a new case of Ebola virus disease in Liberia — a 30-year-old woman who died yesterday afternoon while being transferred to a hospital in the capital Monrovia.

Liberia’s Ministry of Health, WHO and partner agencies immediately sent a team to the community outside Monrovia where the woman lived and the clinic where she was being treated to begin case investigation and identification of individuals who may have been in contact with her.

The Ministry of Health of Rwanda organized from 29th to 31st March 2016, in Bugesera District,  a three day International Conference on health financing in collaboration with its partners including WHO.  The theme of the Conference was “Health financing reforms in the eve of sustainable development goals: a look at the past 15 years of health reform”.

As many as 1 in 5 Liberians suffer a mild to moderate mental disorder, according to WHO estimates, yet the country has only one registered psychiatrist and, until recently, the vast majority of health workers had a limited understanding of mental illness.

This is changing however, as WHO and partners are helping to equip health workers across the country with the skills to provide front-line care for people with mental illness.