Mozambique News

The road to Milange health centre is dry and dusty. The heavy rain falls in the beginning of the year in Zambezia province are a distant memory and Milange has not seen rains for days now. Chief maternal and child health nurse, Maria Florinda, and her assistant have most of their working day behind them. They have just assisted Elisa Uasone in the birth of a baby boy.  Now they are filling out the last details of today’s register in the quiet maternity ward. 

With more than 2.5 million children unregistered and the causes of over 300,000 deaths unknown in the country, Mozambique has embarked on an ambitious plan to address the civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS) needs of its population.

“When a child is crying, we have to take it to the health centre to do tests, and see which is the illness, because the health centre is where all the needed care is available…”. 

Each time a women breaks out singing; the rest of the group quickly follows through.

“We have to take care of the children because they are the richness of tomorrow. We cannot give water to the baby, we have to give breast milk…” 

The World Health Report 2013 is now available in Portuguese. The Report focuses on the importance of research in advancing progress towards universal health coverage, which means that citizens obtain the health services they need without suffering financial hardship when paying for them. The report identifies the benefits of increased investment in health research by low- and middle-income countries through case studies from around the world incl. Mozambique (page 108), and proposes ways to further strengthen this type of research and information sharing.

Maputo, 20 May 2015 - To scale up the cholera response activities in Mozambique, the Ministry of Health (MoH), in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO) and support from the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research in Bangladesh (icddr,b), organized a series of trainings to ensure standardized case management and laboratory diagnosis protocols to reduce mortality and unnecessary deaths from diarrhoeal diseases. 

With a prevalence of 46% of children under five in rural areas , malaria is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in Mozambique.  The disease represents nearly half of all outpatient visits and more than half of all inpatient visits at paediatric clinics.

Around 20% of deaths caused by road traffic accidents in Mozambique are children under 13 years. Children are particularly vulnerable because they often walk or use unsafe transportation to and from school. 

SaveKidsLives is the theme for Global Road Safety Week 2015. The week is a call for action by policy makers to protect children from fatal accidents by creating a safe journey to and from school with speed limits on the roads, safe foot- and cycle paths, safe crossings, seatbelts in school busses and other public transportation, and helmets for motorcyclists. 

Malaria accounts for a high burden of morbidity and mortality in all parts of Mozambique especially among children. The disease is particularly prevalent in the rural areas, where almost 1 in 2 children under five have or have had malaria

To lower the high disease burden and reduce mortality rates, the Ministry of Health and WHO conducted a training course for a core team of malaria laboratory technicians from the National Reference Laboratory. 

On the 6th of November 2014 at 8am, the Observatory for Human Resources for Health hosts its Third Annual Conference with the Theme: 

“Maternal and Neonatal Health Workforce towards Universal Health Coverage”

The Conference will debate and share information on the role of health professionals in service delivery for maternal and neonatal health. The first part of the Conference will be a round table discussion with panellists and thereafter there will be nine thematic sessions from different national and international institutions. 

Lichinga, Niassa, 30-31 Aug 2013 – The dirt road leading to the machamba in Machomane outside Lichinga city (22Km) is dry and dusty. Though the road is quiet, the machamba is very different that usually. The machamba is bustling with dancing women in colourful capulanas and men playing drums. The crowd is awaiting the arrival of the Vice-Minister for Health, Dr Nazira Vali Abdula. Among the participants is Dr Felisbela Gaspar, Director of the Institute for Traditional Medicine, in the Ministry of Health established four years ago in 2009.