Joint statement from the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, Liberia; the Centers for Disease Control (CDC); the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization (WHO).

Monrovia, 8 May 2015 – A week-long campaign to vaccinate more than 600,000 children against polio and measles kicks off today in Liberia, led by the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, and supported by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization (WHO).

Abuja, 07 May 2015 - A joint high-level preparatory meeting between the Federal Ministry of Health (FMOH) and the World Health Organization Country Office (WCO) in Nigeria was convened on 05 May, 2015 in Abuja to ensure active and fruitful participation by the Nigerian delegation to the Sixty-Eighth session of the World Health Assembly which opens in Geneva on 18 May, 2015.

The meeting had the presence of the Minister of State for Health, the Permanent Secretary, the Directors of the FMOH, the 34 members of the Nigerian delegation and WCO staff.

Kween 6 May, 2015:- Uganda commemorated the 5th African Vaccination Week (AVW) with a call to parents and guardians to immunize their children early and adhere to the immunization schedule.

Abuja, Nigeria 5 February 2015 - In efforts to kick start the process of a state level health workforce registry in Nigeria, the World Health Organization (WHO) has supported Bauchi and Cross River States to hold two workshops to pre-test the National Health Workforce Registry (NHWR). A fully functional NHWR is expected to be ready by the middle of 2015.

Abuja, 05 May 2015 - Due to the insurgency that has affected parts of Nigeria; with the attendant humanitarian crisis threatening  huge numbers of internally displaced persons (IDPS) from Borno, Yobe, Adamawa and Bauchi States, the WHO Regional Director for the African Region Dr Matshidiso Moeti on 07 April 2015 signed a declaration of Nigeria as an “Internal grade 2 Emergency”.

In Ebola-affected countries, like Sierra Leone, the lack of running water can make hand hygiene a challenge. Hand hygiene is so important in public health that 5 May every year is marked as Hand Hygiene Day.

Abuja, 30 April 2015 - This year, Nigeria commemorated the World Malaria Day (WMD) in a week-long celebration which included a Town Hall meeting with communities on malaria best practices, rallies, advocacy to churches and mosques as well as wide range of media activities to create awareness on the malaria elimination programme; centered around the theme for the 2015 WMD ‘’Invest in the future; Defeat Malaria’’.

Kampala 4th May, 2015:- The Inter-district Elimination of Mother to Child Transmission of HIV/AIDS (eMTCT) Peer Learning Meeting was held at Imperial Royale Hotel in Kampala. The meeting which was organized by  African Mayors’ initiative for Community action on AIDS  (AMICAALL)  was to address the problems and find solutions to improving the performance of the 25 slow-progressing districts in achieving eMTCT in Uganda.

Following the start of the Ebola outbreak in 2014, the intensely-affected countries suspended all large-scale national mass immunization campaigns for diseases like measles and polio. This decision was made as a safety precaution because typically immunization campaigns involve large gatherings of people as parents bring their children to the vaccination place. During the time Ebola was spreading widely, health authorities warned large group gatherings put more people at risk of contracting Ebola.

Under the theme ‘Vaccination: A gift for life’, Seychelles joined the rest of the African region to celebrate African Vac-cination Week from the 24th to 30th April 2015. This year’s commemoration in the Seychelles focused more on raising awareness and reinforcing immunisation health messages to various target groups, with the objective of further strengthening immunization programmes and coverage in the country.