News Releases

Pretoria—The World Health Organization (WHO) in the African region, Member States and partners have agreed on a roadmap to protect communities during public health emergencies, becoming the first region to formally establish systems that hold both governments and WHO jointly accountable for preventing and addressing sexual misconduct in their shared operations. 

Pretoria—The World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Africa today launched the first-ever Africa Prototype Competency-Based Curricula for ten selected health professions, marking a major turning point in how the region trains, equips and prepares its health workforce for the future. 

Brazzaville — To mark Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Day on 19 November, World Health Organization (WHO) in the African region launched the AFRO Geodatabase (AFRO GDB) to enhance the use of trusted administrative boundary data to strengthen geospatial governance and empower data-driven health decisions across Africa. 

Nairobi – For years, frontline health workers in Kenya faced long delays in receiving payments for their work in vaccination campaigns. Cash-based systems often took more than two weeks, sometimes never reaching workers at all. The process was weighed down by high costs, risks, and lack of transparency, undermining morale and disrupting polio outbreak response. 

Yaounde ‒ For the first time ever, a circulating variant poliovirus type 3 (cVDPV3) was fully sequenced in Cameroon, marking a major milestone in Africa’s efforts to detect and respond  faster to polio outbreaks. 

Poliovirus has three types: 1, 2, and 3. Although wild polio type 3 was declared eradicated in 2019, variant type 3 can still appear where immunity is low, making quick detection and response essential to contain outbreaks.