The ongoing Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is not related to the lack of means or experience to fight the epidemic, but the difficulty to reach communities, the World Health Organization Director-General told the World Health Assembly today. The DRC Minister of Health illustrated the complexity of the response, linked […] Continue reading ->
The Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) this week launched its new five-year strategy that aims to overcome final hurdles in eradicating polio transmission. However, remaining pockets of transmission in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria pose challenges of geographic isolation, migration and insecurity, leading to “missing children” in polio vaccination efforts. Image Credits: Jean-Marc Giboux, GPEI. Continue reading ->
Geneva-based Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, today announced the start of a major two-week campaign to vaccinate hundreds of thousands of people in Harare, Zimbabwe against typhoid, after an outbreak there. The campaign will be the first in Africa to use a new typhoid vaccine that can be administered to young children and is long-lasting. Nearly 2,000 cases of typhoid have been reported since a second wave of outbreak arose in September, Gavi said. Continue reading ->
Poliomyelitis, a highly infectious and sometimes debilitating viral disease, is about to be eradicated from the world. However, the last mile is the hardest, World Health Organization Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said last week at a member state discussion on polio eradication. Beyond the direct eradication of wild polioviruses in the three last endemic countries, and the steady supply of affordable inactivated poliovirus vaccines, the WHO is being called on to help countries keep the virus at bay, and implement a strategy to use polio-related structures to strengthen their national health systems, as polio funding is dwindling. Continue reading ->