This fourth annual report monitors global progress towards the 2023 target for global elimination of industrially produced trans-fatty acids (TFA), highlighting achievements during the past year (Oc
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tober 2021 – September 2022). Countries are responding to the World Health Organization (WHO) call to action by putting into place best-practice TFA policies. Mandatory TFA policies are currently in effect for 3.4 billion people in 60 countries (43% of the world population); of these, 43 countries have best-practice policies in effect, covering 2.8 billion people (36% of the world population).
Over the past year, several additional countries took action to eliminate industrially produced TFA: best-practice policies came into effect in India in January 2022, Uruguay in May 2022 and Oman in July 2022. Best-practice policies were passed in Bangladesh in November 2021 (to come into effect in December 2022) and in Ukraine in September 2020 (to come into effect in October 2023), best-practice TFA policies are projected to pass soon in Mexico, Nigeria and Sri Lanka.
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The Mapping Antimicrobial Resistance and Antimicrobial Use Partnership (MAAP) project has conducted a multi-year, multi-country study that provides stark insights on the under-reported depth of the antimicrobial resistance (AMR) crisis across Africa
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and lays out urgent policy recommendations to address the emergency.
MAAP reviewed 819,584 AMR records from 2016-2019, from 205 laboratories across Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Eswatini, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. MAAP also reviewed data from 327 hospital and community pharmacies and 16 national-level AMC datasets.
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WHO has published the first-ever guidance on the clinical management of diphtheria. The only previously available guidance was an operational protocol. The new guidance followed the rigorous process for
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developing guidance at WHO.
It addresses the use of Diphtheria Antitoxin (DAT) in the treatment of diphtheria. There is a worldwide shortage of DAT and evidence based recommendations on the use of DAT were requested by many Member States.
The guidance also includes new recommendations on antibiotics. In patients with suspected or confirmed diphtheria, WHO recommends using macrolide antibiotics (azithromycin, erythromycin) rather than penicillin antibiotics.
This clinical practice guideline has been rapidly developed recognizing the global increase in diphtheria outbreaks. Outbreaks of diphtheria in Nigeria, Guinea and neighbouring countries in 2023 have highlighted the urgent need for evidence-based clinical practice guidelines for the treatment of diphtheria. Given the sporadic nature of outbreaks, many clinicians in the affected regions have never managed acute diphtheria and its related complications. Diphtheria remains a neglected disease and vaccination is the top priority. At the same time, for patients with diphtheria, access to antibiotics, DAT and supportive care can be lifesaving.
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The Lancet. 13 March 2022. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(21)02868-3. Previous Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) studies have reported
national health estimates
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for Ethiopia. Substantial regional variations in socioeconomic status, population, demography, and access to health care within Ethiopia require comparable estimates at the subnational level. The GBD 2019 Ethiopia subnational analysis aimed to measure the progress and disparities in health across nine regions and two chartered cities.
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In the context of the Support to National Malaria Control Programme (SuNMaP), demand creation is the strategic combination of advocacy, communicati
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on and mobilisation approaches that seek to achieve increased community awareness of, and demand for, effective malaria prevention and treatment services. For malaria treatment, demand creation focuses on promoting improved testing, prompt and proper use of artemisinin combination therapy (ACT) treatment for individual cases of malaria, and effective home management of fever, together with referrals of severe cases to a higher-level health facility.
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The number of COVID-19 cases is on the rise again, with South Africa nearing half of all confirmed cases in the WHO African Region. Threats of new
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variants loom and low vaccination coverage raises questions on the future of the response to COVID-19. Prevention remains the key strategy in most sub-Saharan countries. Five National Centres (NCs) from the African Health Observatory Platform on Health Systems and Policies (AHOP), based in Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda and Senegal, reflect on lessons to be learnt from their containment responses in the initial phases. They construct timelines to highlight the policies and challenges associated with introducing a range of public health containment measures and
discuss the extent to which these measures continue to be valuable given the ever-changing nature of the pandemic.
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The ECDC Communicable Disease Threats Report (CDTR) is a weekly bulletin for epidemiologists and health professionals on active public
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health threats. This issue covers the period 5-11 November 2017 and includes updates on measles, rubella, chikungunya, West Nile virus, Plague, monkeypox, legionnaires's disease, influenza and Marburg virus disease.
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This study addresses part of the Terms of Reference for a scoping report ‘An analysis of appro
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aches to laboratory capacity strengthening for drug resistant infections in low and middle income countries’. It has been produced as a separate report because it is also very relevant for a second study ‘Supporting Surveillance Capacity for Antimicrobial Resistance: Regional Networks and Educational Resources’. This study compares antimicrobial surveillance systems in three low and middle income countries in order to describe the components of these systems and to understand which surveillance models are best suited to particular contexts. Ghana, Nigeria and Nepal were selected as study countries because they cover different continents and include one ‘fragile’ context (Nigeria). Brief information from Malawi is also included.
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The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC)
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declared a Yellow Fever (YF) outbreak and activated a multi-sectoral Emergency Operations Centre for coordination of Yellow Fever response on 12 November 2020. The outbreak, which mainly affected three states of Delta, Enugu and Bauchi, already recorded a total of 222 suspected cases 19 confirmed cases and 76 deaths between 1 and 11 November 2020.
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Background: One of the objectives of the Global Action Plan by the World Health Organization (WHO) to contain antimicrobial resistance (AMR), is to
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improve global awareness through effective communication and education. Comprehensive information on the level of awareness of AMR among Nigerian public is deficient. This study was therefore designed to assess the current level of awareness and knowledge of the Nigerian public of AMR.
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Human African trypanosomiasis (HAT) has been an alarming global public health issue. The disease affects mainly poor and marginalized people in low-resource settings and is caused by two subspecies
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of haemoflagellate parasite, Trypanosoma brucei and transmitted by tsetse flies. Progress made in HAT control during the past decade has prompted increasing global dialogue on its elimination and eradication. The disease is targeted by the World Health Organization (WHO) for elimination as a public health problem by 2020 and to terminate its transmission globally by 2030, along-side other Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTD). Several methods have been used to control tsetse flies and the disease transmitted by them. Old and new tools to control the disease are available with constraints.
Currently, there are no vaccines available. Efforts towards intervention to control the disease over the past decade have seen considerable progress and remarkable success with incidence dropping progressively, reversing the upward trend of reported cases. This gives credence in a real progress in its elimination. This study reviews various control measures, progress and a highlight of control issues, vector and parasite barriers that may have been hindering progress towards its elimination.
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Advances in Infectious Diseases, 2015, 5, 57-62
Published Online March 2015 in SciRes.
Since the re-emergence of monkeypox in Nigeria in September 2017, the Nigeria Centre
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for Disease Control(NCDC) has continued to receive reports and respond to cases of the
disease from States across the country. Between September 2017 when the outbreak started and November 2018, about 300 suspected cases had been reported from 26 out of 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory. The highest number of cases were reported from States in the South-South region of Nigeria. Monkeypox is a zoonotic orthopox virus, which presents in humans with symptoms such as fever, headache, body pain, malaise, lymphadenopathy (enlargement of glands),
sore throat and the typical generalised vesiculopustular rash. Transmission is via direct or
indirect contact with infected animals, human, or contaminated materials.
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