Feature Stories

Abuja – World Health Organization (WHO) is stepping up support to the Nigerian authorities to provide emergency health assistance following devastation caused by severe flooding that has so far affected more than 610 000 people, damaged key basic infrastructure and raised the risks of food insecurity and spread of infectious diseases.

The floods have displaced more than 225 000 people, with 201 deaths reported in 15 of the country’s 36 states and about 115 000 hectares of farmland inundated.

Nairobi/Kinshasa ‒ World Health Organization (WHO) today delivered 14 metric tons of medical supplies and equipment to the Democratic Republic of the Congo to support infection prevention and control and case management for the ongoing response to halt the mpox outbreak.

Monrovia – Late one night, 44-year-old Irene Mabande’s four-year-old daughter Emerald suffered a severe asthma attack at home in Tubmanburg, the capital of Bomi County in the northwest of Liberia. “She was striving for air. She couldn’t breathe on her own,” Mabande recalls. “In the hospital, they don’t have a nebulizer for asthmatic patients, so the only thing that could bring her back was oxygen.”

Juba ‒ Cecilia Achuwor, a 38-year-old mother of six children, is one of the hundreds of thousands of refugees and returnees who have crossed the border into South Sudan since the beginning of the conflict in neighbouring Sudan 16 months ago. “My husband remains in Khartoum,” she says. “We separated from him without any communication. He doesn’t know where we are and we also don’t know where he is. I am here alone with the children, and they are all sick,” she says. 

Pretoria – One night in September 2023, 21-year-old university student Sinalo Tungwashe, who had been experiencing flu-like symptoms for some weeks, was roused from a fitful sleep by sharp chest pains. “I was struggling to breathe,” he recalls. “I knew that something was not normal. For a second, I thought I was about to die.”

Sokodé –​​​​ In Togo, the health landscape is characterized by high morbidity and maternal mortality rates. According to the National Health Development Plan (NHDP 2023–2027), the maternal mortality rate in 2021 was 399 deaths per 100 000 live births, a slight improvement from the 401 deaths per 100 000 live births reported in the 2013–2014 Demographic and Health Survey (DHS).

Malabo ‒ Equatorial Guinea has made remarkable progress in its fight against tuberculosis (TB), with screening rates increasing significantly from 34% to 87% between 2020 and 2023. This progress is thanks to the implementation of a national strategy supported by World Health Organization (WHO) and the adoption of cutting-edge diagnostic tools.

Luanda – When municipal health promotion supervisor Papa Diabanza underwent intensive training as part of a strategy to boost epidemiological surveillance and disease prevention in Angola, he became an important cog in the country’s renewed bid to leverage local communities in an effort to improve response time to health emergencies.