The World Health Organization’s Ethiopia Country Office hosted the WHO Consultative Bi-Regional Meeting on the Status of The Implementation of Visceral Leishmaniasis Control Strategies and Epidemiological Situations in Eastern Africa that was organized and facilitated by WHO Headquarters. 

Kenya joined the rest of the world to mark the third UN Global Road Safety Week scheduled for 04 to 10 May 2015. This year, the theme for the Global Road Safety week focused on children and Road Safety. The national event was commemorated on 7th May 2015 at General Kago primary school in Thika, Kiambu County. The day was presided over by the Director general of National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) Mr Francis Meja.

Today, 9 May 2015, WHO declares Liberia free of Ebola virus transmission. Forty-two days have passed since the last laboratory-confirmed case was buried on 28 March. The outbreak of Ebola virus disease in Liberia is over.
 
Interruption of transmission is a monumental achievement for a country that reported the highest number of deaths in the largest, longest, and most complex outbreak since Ebola first emerged in 1976. At the peak of transmission, which occurred during August and September 2014, the country was reporting from 300 to 400 new cases every week.
 

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).

Brazzaville, 8 May 2015 – The African Region is facing an increasing risk of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) that threatens the effective prevention and treatment of an ever-increasing range of infections caused by bacteria, parasites, viruses and fungi.

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.

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, 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”.