Infectious diseases continue to pose a major public health threat in South Sudan. Adding to the chronic burden of disease, regular outbreaks further threaten people's health.

 In a conflict setting, WHO and partners are responding to multiple outbreaks including cholera, malaria, measles, suspected hemorrhagic fever, and kala-azar.

WHO in collaboration with the Ministry of Health (MOH) and State Ministry of Health, Borno trained 28 community resource persons (CORPs) from newly liberated areas on Integrated Management of Childhood Illness including handwashing, breastfeeding and malnutrition screening.

The WHO team visited Monguno Local Government Area (LGA) to determine the feasibility of expanding the Early Warning Alert and Response System (EWARS) and conduct rapid health facility assessments in Monguno LGA.

Abuja 09 September 2015: The highest level of commitment to polio eradication was yet again demonstrated by the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria Muhammadu Buhari when he flagged off the sixth immunization campaign in his home town of Daura local government area (LGA) in Katsina state on Saturday, 5th September 2015. The President personally administered drops of polio vaccine to children less than five years of age at his residence in Daura.

Nairobi, September 9, 2016 - The Horn of Africa Polio Technical Advisory Group (TAG) meeting has ended in Nairobi with an urgent call for member countries to ‘get back on track’ if the looming threat of a possible polio virus outbreak in the region is to be averted.

Speaking at the end of the four-day meeting in Nairobi, the TAG Chair Dr Jean-Marc Olive underlined the threat of an impending importation of the virus following the outbreak in Nigeria last July.

The World Health Organization (WHO) a member and secretariat for the Health Development Partners (HDP) hosted the first interactive meeting with the Health Committee of the10th Parliament of Uganda. The objective of the meeting was to orient the newly constituted Parliamentary Health Committee (PHC) about the work of HDP in supporting the Ministry of Health (MoH) to provide better health services.

DRC has, from early 2016 to September, registered a cumulative total of 18.252 suspected cholera cases, of which 516 deaths (fatality rate of 2.8%) throughout the country, particularly in the Equateur, Kinshasa, Upper-Lomami, Upper-Katanga, Maï-Ndombe, Mongala, North-Kivu, Tshopo and South-Kivu Provinces. WHO and its partners are supporting the efforts of the Ministry of Health (MOH) to quickly bring the epidemic under control.

BRAZZAVILLE, 6 September 2016 – The largest emergency vaccination campaign against yellow fever ever attempted in Africa, came to an end on 5 September 2016 with more than 10.6 million people in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) vaccinated against the lethal disease.

World Breast feeding week was observed in The Gambia, from 1st to 7th August 2015. The Ministry of Health and Social Welfare (MOH&SW), through the National Nutrition Agency (NaNA), in collaboration with WHO, UNICEF and other partners came up with activities to sensitize the public especially so, employers and their women employees on the importance attached to breastfeeding.

This year, WHO is encouraging people to “Support mums to breastfeed anytime, anywhere,” as all of society has a role to play in making our communities more breastfeeding-friendly.

The World Health Organization (WHO), Global Fund together with partners and in collaboration with Makerere University supported the Ministry of Health National Tuberculosis and Leprosy Program (MOH/NTLP) to conduct the National Tuberculosis (TB) prevalence survey.  The goal of the survey was to enable the NTLP to gain a better understanding of the burden of TB so as to identify ways of improving TB control in the country.

Brazzaville, 2 September, 2016 – A toolkit aimed at helping both health and non-health professionals to better address the root causes of what makes people sick or healthy has been launched by the World Health Organization (WHO) in the African Region.