September 2016 - The World Health Organization (WHO) Country Office in Uganda hosted the inaugural Malaria Surveillance, Monitoring, & Evaluation – Operational Research (SM&E-OR) Technical Working Group (TWG) meeting.

Lusaka,  21 September 2016 - In its continued efforts to improve child health and survival, the Ministry of Health introduced the Measles Rubella vaccine (MR) in the national routine immunisation system. The vaccine is being introduced through the nationwide preventive vaccination campaign targeting a total of 6,926,757 children aged 9 months to under 15 years. The vaccination campaign runs from 19th to 24th September 2016 and covers a total of 103 districts in all the 10 provinces in the country.

Abuja, 21 September 2016 - The scope of the second polio outbreak response (OBR) to the recently detected wild polio virus type 1 (WPV1) in Borno State has been expanded and different strategies employed to reach eligible children in Nigeria. The immunization campaign which commenced on 17 September, 2016 is targeting 31,540,054 children in 18 states across northern Nigeria.

20 September 2016, NEW YORK - The Presidents of France and South Africa today called for urgent investments globally to create new jobs in the health sector in order to prevent a projected shortfall of 18 million health workers primarily in low- and lower-middle-income countries, and help countries to maximize the social and economic benefits of increased heal

The Ministry of Health and Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) with support from WHO and UNICEF convened a three day training at Paradise Hotel on the Nile, Jinja to adopt the tools, norms, standards and guidance for medical certification of cause of death, International Classification of Disease (ICD) coding and reporting of deaths in order to improve the quality and coverage of mortality statistics in Uganda.

The Minister of Health, Dr. Jane Ruth Aceng launched the National Coordination Committee (NCC) for Tuberculosis (TB) at the Ministry of Health (MoH) headquarters in Kampala. The NCC is composed of a membership of different stakeholders in the health sector who include MoH, Health Development Partners, laboratory technicians, Civil Society Organisations, religious organizations, the armed forces and pharmacists.

The World Health Organization (WHO) trained health workers in surveillance for Invasive Bacterial Vaccine-Preventable Diseases (IB-VPD). The trainers included Professor Mary Slack, WHO Consultant, Ms Jill Murray, WHO Consultant, Mr. Reggis Katsande and Mr. Sarathiel Chaipa, AFRO Regional Office, Harare.  This is under the WHO-supported programme of surveillance for IB-VPD, a hospital-based sentinel surveillance network that seeks to gather high quality standardized data on severe invasive infections caused by selected pathogens.

Monrovia, 16 September, 2016 - The Government of Liberia through the Ministry of Health with support from partners launched the 4th National Malaria Indicator Survey (MIS) intended to determine the progress made in reducing the burden of malaria since 2011. The survey will also provide data on key malaria indicators, including mosquito net ownership and use as well as prompt and effective treatment with Artemisinin-based Combination Therapies (ACT), and prevalence of malaria among children under five.  

Francistown, Botswana, 15 September 2016 - The Ministry of Health in Botswana and the World Health Organization convened a three day meeting, for over 100 health sector stakeholders, including Ministry of Health (MoH) top officials, District Health Management Teams (DHMTs), partners, academia and researchers, to assess progress made in the implementation of set targets for Botswana’s malaria elimination efforts.

Maiduguri, 12 September 2016 - The World Health Organization (WHO) has supported the Borno State Ministry of Health (SMOH) to establish Early Warning Alert and Response System (EWARS) by training  over 80 health professionals.

EWARS is a WHO disease surveillance, alert and response initiative for early  detection and containment of  disease outbreaks in humanitarian emergency settings.