World Health Organization

Swedish health authorities said Thursday they had registered the first case outside Africa of the more dangerous variant of mpox, a viral infection spread through close contact. The announcement came a day after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared mpox a global health emergency for the second time in two years, warning that the virus could eventually spread across international borders. Sweden's public health authority confirmed to Agence France-Presse (AFP) that the case was the same…

The World Health Organization declared a global emergency after mpox outbreaks in Congo and elsewhere in Africa on Wednesday. Earlier this week, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declared the mpox outbreak a public health emergency, with more than 500 deaths, and called for international help to stop the spread of the virus. "This is something that should concern us all ... The potential for further spread within Africa and beyond is very worrying," said WHO Director-General…

African countries were able to triple COVID-19 vaccinations in the past week, but the prospect of inoculating up to 10% of the continent's population by the end of September is still elusive, Africa's head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday. At the same time, the continent saw 248,000 new confirmed cases in the past week, with at least 24 countries seeing an increase in infections driven by the delta variant. "This is a tragedy that can be prevented if African countries can get…

The end of Guinea's second Ebola outbreak was officially announced on Saturday by the World Health Organization (WHO). The outbreak began on February 14. "I have the honor to declare the end of Ebola" in Guinea, said WHO official Alfred Ki-Zerbo at a ceremony in the southeastern Nzerekore region where the disease occurred in late January. It was the second such outbreak in the poor country of 13 million people since the devastating Ebola epidemic of 2013-2016 in West Africa, which left 11,300 dead in…

A sense of dread grows in some of the poorest countries in the world as virus cases grow and more contagious variants tackle a crippling shortage of vaccines. The crisis has alerted public health officials along with millions of unvaccinated people, especially those who are struggling in the informal economy that is not the book, living hand-to-mouth and paying cash in health crises. With intensive care units filled in cities overwhelmed by the pandemic, serious illness can be a death sentence. Africa…

While many countries' fight against the coronavirus pandemic is already being challenged by vaccine shortages and weak healthcare infrastructure, doubts about the available vaccines in Africa are also slowing down inoculation, which serves as another obstacle to reducing the number of new cases. When Edith Serem received her COVID-19 vaccination last month at a Nairobi hospital where she works as a doctor, nurses jokingly warned that she could start speaking a foreign language. Serem said some…

More than 650,000 children have been vaccinated against malaria across Kenya, Ghana and Malawi since the start of the pilot project two years ago, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced on Tuesday. Global immunization and malaria advisory bodies are expected to meet in October to review vaccine data and consider whether to recommend wider use. The RTS, S vaccine is the only existing jab shown to reduce malaria in children. It acts against Plasmodium falciparum - the deadliest malaria parasite globally and the…

The Democratic Republic of Congo, where the deadly Ebola virus first appeared in 1976, has begun a countdown to the official end of its latest outbreak, this time in the east of the country, health officials said on Tuesday. The last patient to be treated for Ebola tested negative for the second time on Sunday, triggering a 42-day countdown from Monday, the World Health Organization's (WHO) DR Congo office said. The period represents twice the average maximum duration of Ebola's incubation, the Agence…

Nearly 4 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have arrived in the Nigerian capital Abuja, the third and largest delivery to date to an African country through the global COVAX initiative, which was created to ensure that low- and middle-income countries have access to vaccines. The COVAX program sent 3.94 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine manufactured by the Serum Institute of India, from Mumbai to Abuja, according to a joint statement from UNICEF, working in collaboration with the World Health…