The 2014–2015 Ebola epidemic in western Africa was the longest and most deadly Ebola epidemic in history, resulting in 28,616 cases and 11,310 deaths in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. The Ebola virus has been known since 1976, when two separate outbreaks were identified in the Democratic Repub
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lic of Congo (then Zaire) and South Sudan (then Sudan). However, because all Ebola outbreaks prior to that in West Africa in 2014–2015 were relatively isolated and of short duration, little was known about how to best manage patients to improve survival, and there were no approved therapeutics or vaccines. When the World Heath Organization declared the 2014-2015 epidemic a public health emergency of international concern in August 2014, several teams began conducting formal clinical trials in the Ebola affected countries during the outbreak.
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Report of the Joint World Health Organization–Brien Holden Vision Institute Global Scientific Meeting on Myopia | University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia 16–18 March 2015
Anopheles stephensi is a mosquito species that is capable of transmitting both Plasmodium falciparum and P. vivax malaria parasites. Unlike the other main mosquito vectors of malaria, it thrives in urban and man-made environments. Originally native to parts of
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South Asia and the Arabian Peninsula, An. stephensi has been detected, to date, in 7 countries in the African continent.
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A new FMP was opened in Lutaya (Yei County), bringing the total number of EVD-related FMPs within South Sudan to 14. Six additional FMPs are operated in cooperation with DTM Uganda on the Ugandan
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side of the border due to access issues on the South Sudanese side.
A field mission was carried out in Yambio County to scope potential new FMP locations, provide the enumerators in Gangura with refresher training and improve arrangements for data upload.
Installation of incinerators and waste pits for medical waste management is ongoing at Morobo and Panyume Primary Health Care Centres (PHCC).
Two new POE screening sites established in Lasu and Birigo were officially opened and have started screening activities on the reporting period, making the total active IOM-supported PoE screening sites at 13
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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0002439
South Sudan has a high burden – among the highest in sub-Saharan Africa – of neglected tropical diseases (NTDs). This adversely affects the health
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and social and economic well-being of people in the country. The prevention, control and eventual elimination of many NTDs depend heavily on improved access to water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) and, once there is access, on sound sanitation and hygiene practices. This is especially the case in NTD endemic communities.
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Please read and download the latest updates at the website
http://www.who.int/hac/crises/ssd/epi/en/
This was a Phase 3, multi-center, randomized, open-label, parallel-group, active control study where 273 male and female patients with first stage Trypanosoma brucei gambiense HAT were treated at six sites: one trypanosomiasis reference center in Angola, one hospital in
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South Sudan, and four hospitals in the Democratic Republic of the Congo between August 2005 and September 2009 to support the registration of pafuramidine for treatment of first stage HAT in collaboration with the United States Food and Drug Administration. Patients were treated with either 100 mg of pafuramidine orally twice a day for 10 days or 4 mg/kg pentamidine intramuscularly once daily for 7 days to assess the efficacy and safety of pafuramidine versus pentamidine. Pregnant and lactating women as well as adolescents were included.
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Anopheles stephensi, a highly competent vector of Plasmodium falciparum and P. vivax, is considered an efficient vector of urban malaria. Until 2011, the reported distribution of An. stephensi was confined to certain countries of South Asia and part
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s of the Arabian Peninsula. Since then, the vector has been collected in Djibouti (2012), Ethiopia (2016), Sudan (2016), Sri Lanka (2017), Somalia (2019), and most recently Nigeria (2020) and Yemen (2021). WHO considers the spread of An. stephensi to be a major potential threat to malaria control and elimination in Africa and southern Asia and has recently launched an initiative against the spread of this vector in Africa.
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The Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) on Immunization held a meeting on 3-6 October 2022. This report summarizes the discussions, conclusions and recommendations.
It covers the following items:
Global Reports
Immunization Agenda 2030 and Regional reports
Monkeypox
RSV
COVID-19 vacci
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nes
Polio vaccination
Ebola (Sudan ebolavirus outbreak update)
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Armed conflict continues to tear apart communities across the world. From Boko Haram’s abducted ‘brides’ and Islamic State’s ‘Caliphate Cubs’, to the countless others exploited by armed groups in Democratic Republic of Congo, South
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Sudan and Afghanistan, many taking part in the world’s wars are still children.
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Internationally, there is a growing concern over antimicro-bial resistance (AMR) which is currently estimated to ac-count for more than 700,000 deaths per year worldwide. If no appropriate measures are taken to halt its pro-gress, AMR will cost approximately 10 million lives andabout US$100 trillion
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per year by 2050. In contrast tosome other health issues, AMR is a problem that con-cerns every country irrespective of its level of incomeand development as resistant pathogens do not respect borders.Despite the threat presented by AMR, the 2014 WorldHealth Organization (WHO) and the recent O’Neill re-port describe significant gaps in surveillance, standardmethodologies and data sharing. The 2014 WHOreport identified Africa and South East Asia as the regions without established AMR surveillance systems.
Tadesseet al. BMC Infectious Diseases (2017) 17:616 DOI 10.1186/s12879-017-2713-1
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2.4 billion reasons to end the global climate and inequality crisis. An estimated 774 million children across the world – or one third of the world’s child population - are living with the dual impacts of poverty and high climate .The country with the highest percentage of children impacted by t
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his double burden is South Sudan (87%), followed by the Central African Republic (85%) and Mozambique (80%).risk,
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Uganda hosts approximately 1.1 million refugees making it Africa’s largest refugee hosting country and one of the five largest refugee hosting countries in the world. Most recently, throughout 2016- 2018, Uganda was impacted by three parallel emergencies from
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South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and Burundi. In view of the on-going conflicts and famine
vulnerabilities in the Great Lakes Region, more refugee influxes and protracted refugee situations are anticipated in the foreseeable future. The unprecedented mass influx of refugees into Uganda in 2016-2018 has put enormous pressure on
the country’s basic service provision, in particular health and education services. Refugees share all social services with the local host communities. The refugee hosting districts are among the least developed districts in the country, and thus the additional refugee population is putting a high strain on already limited resources.
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EVALUATION REPORT | The purpose of the evaluation is to strengthen child protection programming in the context of emergencies by assessing UNICEF’s performance and drawing lessons and recommendations that will influence ongoing and future programmes, in both preparedness and response. Apart from g
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lobal and regional interviews and desk reviews, the evaluation is grounded in a solid base of evidence from four indepth case studies of recent emergency responses, in Colombia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Pakistan and South Sudan, as well as extensive research covering eight additional countries.
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Gambiense human African trypanosomiasis is a deadly infectious disease affecting West and Central Africa, South Sudan and Uganda, and transmitted between humans by tsetse flies. The disease has caus
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ed several major epidemics, the latest one in the 1990s. Thanks to recent innovations such as rapid diagnostic tests for population screening, a single-dose oral treatment and a highly efficient vector control strategy, interruption of transmission of the causative parasite is now within reach. If indeed gHAT has an exclusively human reservoir, this could even result in eradication of the disease. Even if there were an animal reservoir, on the basis of epidemiological data, it plays a limited role. Maintaining adequate postelimination surveillance in known historic foci, using the newly developed tools, should be sufficient to prevent any future resurgence.
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Many African countries were amongst the most rapid to respond to the emerging threat of COVID-19, implementing large-scale interventions at very early stages of their epidemic. As demonstrated in this document using very simple models, this rapid mobilization and timeliness of implementing control m
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easures is likely to be an important determinant of their success. Indeed, as these measures were relaxed, subsequent waves of disease have been observed in many countries including South Africa, Kenya, Tunisia, Morocco, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) where such waves have severely impacted the health system by straining the supply of oxygen and ICU beds and inflicting a heavy toll on healthcare workers, often necessitating the re-imposition of control measures.
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This is the seventeenth annual publication of the Global Hunger Index (GHI), a report jointly published by Concern Worldwide and Welthungerhilfe.
The 2022 Global Hunger Index (GHI) brings us face to face with a grim reality. The toxic cocktail of conflict, climate change, and the COVID-19 pandemi
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c had already left millions exposed to food price shocks and vulnerable to further crises. Now the conflict in Ukraine—with its knock-on effects on global supplies of and prices for food, fertilizer, and fuel—is turning a crisis into a catastrophe. But the speed and severity of the global food crisis reflects the fact that millions of people were already living on the precarious edge of hunger—a legacy of past failures to build more just, sustainable, and resilient food systems. This year’s report therefore focuses on food systems transformation and local governance.
According to the 2022 GHI, Hunger is at alarming levels in 5 countries—Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Madagascar, and Yemen— and is provisionally considered *alarming *in 4 additional countries— Burundi, Somalia, South Sudan, and Syria. In a further 35 countries, hunger is considered serious, based on 2022 GHI scores and provisional designations.
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Recommendations and Summary
This report explores the impact of COVID-19 on humanitarian access in the initial months of the crisis, including both the delivery of assistance and performance of protection activities. It examines the varying crisis responses, including the shift to a more localized a
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pproach in certain cases. The analysis draws on case research from Colombia, Myanmar, Nigeria, South Sudan and Yemen, as well as on wide-ranging interviews with humanitarian practitioners and experts from around the world. The research was conducted between August – November 2020. It does not make claims about the legitimacy of government decisions to restrict access – indeed, in many instances, there appeared to be a clear objective of limiting the spread of COVID-19 – but instead focuses on how access limitations have affected the delivery of aid.
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