The Ministry of Health and Sanitation in collaboration with its health sector partners is currently planning to undertake the fifth round of polio National Immunization Days campaign in 2011. The campaign will be conducted from 30 September through 3 October 2011 to vaccinate all children in the country below the age of 5 years against polio.

Harare, 27 Sept. 2011 -- Zimbabwe will become the first country in the sub-region to set up a congenital rubella syndrome (CRS) sentinel surveillance site. The site will be at Harare Children's Hospital. The sentinel site will help in documenting the burden of the disease in Zimbabwe and also provide evidence for future control actions. Presently there is no reliable information of the disease burden in Zimbabwe which makes the planning of appropriate interventions difficult.

Rongo, 23rd September 2011 -- A sub-national polio campaign was launched in Rongo district, Kisumu City following a confirmed polio case in the same district last month. The launch graced by the Assistant Minister for Public Health and Sanitation, Hon. Dr James Gesami, was held at the Rongo Primary School, it was attended by senior government officers from the national, provincial and district levels, area political and religious leaders, partners, including the WHO Kenya Country Representative, Dr. Abdoulie Jack, school going children, and members of the public and media.

New York, 20 September 2011 -- The landmark UN high-level conference on noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) ended on Tuesday in New York after considering strategies to prevent and control mostly life-style and diet-related diseases that have become major killers in Africa and across the world.

Brazzaville, 19 September 2011 --The World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Director for Africa, Dr Luis Sambo, today joined world leaders at the first ever high-level meeting of the United Nations on noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) prevention and control which is taking place in New York, from 19-20 September 2011.

Banjul, 08 September 2011 -- The ninth edition of the African Traditional Medicines Day was launched at the Kanifing Municipal Council's Grounds on Wednesday, 7th September 2011.

Sierra Leone launched the fourth round of polio National Immuniza-tion Days (NIDs) 2011 campaign on 2 September. The four days campaign is targeting to administer Oral Polio Vaccine (OPV) to over 1.2 million children below the age of 5 years nationwide to protect them from the wild polio virus. The campaign is synchronized with more than ten other countries in the West African Region to ensure all children under the age of 5 years are protected against polio and to break the chain of transmission in the region.

The Ministry of Health and Sanitation with support from the World Health Organization and International Rescue Committee has completed training of medical personnel in the Kenema Gov-ernment Hospital on Maternal Death Review (MDR) process. The Review involves understanding the underlying factors that lead to the deaths. Each death tells a story and can provide practi-cal ways of addressing the problems.

The Ministry of Health and Sanitation (MoHS) with technical assistance from the World Health Organization has initiated the development of standards for Adolescent Health Friendly Ser-vices. The standards will be used as tools to accelerate imple-mentation of the adolescent health strategic plan, particularly provision of quality health services as part of the health sector's response to the needs of adolescent and young people.

Yamoussoukro, 3 September 2011 -- The Sixty-first session of the WHO Regional Committee for Africa ended on Friday in Yamoussoukro, Cote d'Ivoire, with the adoption of four resolutions aimed at improving the health situation in the 46 Member States of WHO in the African Region.

A resolution was adopted by the Ministers of Health on the proposed African Public Health Emergency Fund (APHEF) – a major agenda item at this year's meeting. This set the annual recommended contribution of Member States to the Fund at a total of US$50 million.