Overview
This weekly bulletin focuses on selected acute public health emergencies occurring in the WHO African Region. The WHO Health Emergencies Programme is currently monitoring 48 events in the region. This week’s edition covers key new and ongoing events, including:
• Plague in Madagascar
• Undiagnosed acute jaundice syndrome in Ethiopia
• Humanitarian crisis in Nigeria
• Humanitarian crisis in Ethiopia
• Humanitarian crisis in South Sudan
• Hepatitis E in Chad
• Malaria in Burundi
• Cholera in Kenya.
For each of these events, a brief description followed by public health measures implemented and an interpretation of the situation is provided.
A table is provided at the end of the bulletin with information on all new and ongoing public health events currently being monitored in the region, as well as events that have recently been closed.
Major challenges include:
• Delayed, suboptimal or obstructed laboratory investigations impacting the timely identification of the cause of some outbreaks, and in turn hindering interventions
• Inaccessibility of communities affected by various emergencies inhibiting health and other humanitarian interventions