One of the targets of the Millennium Development Goals is to reduce child mortality by two third between 1990 and 2015. According to the 2008 assessment of countdown to 2015, Eritrea is on track to meet this goal, with consistent progress in reducing child deaths with an average annual reduction of around 4% over the last decade.

Still, infant and under5 mortality rates in Eritrea are considered high in reference to the MDG 4 target, which is 49/1000 Live Births by 2015.

Harare, 19 August 2010. Zimbabwe joined the rest of the world in commemorating World Humanitarian Day and to appreciate the work done by humanitarian workers throughout the world. In an event that was attended by the Government of Zimbabwe, national and international NGOs, and many humanitarian workers, the outstanding work by humanitarian workers in Zimbabwe was appreciated by all speakers.

The world Health Organisation Country Office in Sierra Leone has donated several assorted medical supplies and essential items worth USD 160,000 to the Ministry of Health and Sanitation.

The items included anthropometric tools to be used to strengthen nutrition surveillance, life saving protocols and guidelines to improve obstetric care, drugs for integrated treatment of NTDs, motor bikes to strengthen mobility of supervisors to enhance immunization programme and computers with accessories to improve data management capacity.

The Pharmacy Board of Sierra Leone started a two day training workshop on Drug Safety Monitoring for healthcare providers in Freetown on 11 August 2010. The training is aimed at improving surveillance, monitoring and reporting practices of healthcare providers on the adverse reaction of pharmaceutical products.

This year’s theme, “Just 10 steps: The Baby Friendly Way”, emphasizes on the promotion of full practice of all the ten steps by all Maternity Services set out in the WHO/UNICEF joint statement for “Protecting, promoting and supporting breastfeeding: the special role of maternity services.”

The Innocenti Declaration in 1990 called upon the world to fully implement the Ten Steps in all maternities by 1995. Twenty years later, more than 150 countries have Baby-friendly hospitals that have implemented the Ten Steps.

BANJUL, 09 August 2010: The Ministry of Health and Social Welfare in collaboration with WHO and other partners recently concluded a nation-wide vaccination campaign against Influenza A H1N1. About 89.7% of the people targeted were vaccinated during the five-day exercise, covering the period 26 - 30 July 2010.

The campaign aimed at reaching 10% of the country’s population, targeting mainly health workers, pregnant women, diabetics, the chronically ill and children aged between 10 and 12 years.

BANJUL, 10 August 2010: The World Health Organization Country Office (WCO) and the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare (MoHSW) in collaboration with the United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA) have embarked on a nationwide advocacy campaign for reproductive health.

The first leg of this exercise, targeting the Technical Advisory Committees (TACs) at the Regional Governors Offices throughout the country, kicked off on Wednesday, 4th August 2010.

Windhoek, 12 August 2010 -- The Ministry of Health and Social Services (MoHSS) has announced the end of the Influenza H1N1 (2009) pandemic, following the World Health Organization’s (WHO) declaration of the end of the pandemic on 10 August 2010.

"The Gambia Cares: No Woman should die giving Life"

Banjul, 26 July 2010: After several months of intensive advocacy, the Gambia finally launched the African Union Campaign on Accelerated Reduction of Maternal Mortality in Africa (CARMMA), on Saturday, 24 July 2010, with the slogan “The Gambia Cares: No Woman should die during giving Life”.

The event was launched at the Kanifing Municipal Council Grounds.

The Ministry of Health and Sanitation has launched a survey report in Free-town that established high prevalence of risk factors for Non-Communicable Diseases (NCD) in Sierra Leone. The STEPwise survey, is a WHO standard-ized methods for collecting, analyzing and disseminating data on NCDs sur-veillances and was conducted in November 2009. The World Health Organisa-tion provided technical and financial support for conducting the survey.