The World Health Organization (WHO) announced Tuesday that Dr. Mahmoud Fikri, the WHO Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean, died suddenly while en route to a global health summit in South America. Fikri had served since February as the regional director of a challenging territory that includes Djibouti, Egypt, Libya,…
Health officials say they’re planning to vaccinate nearly a million people in northeastern Nigeria’s Borno state amid a cholera outbreak that has claimed at least 40 lives in the past month. The Nigerian government, working with the World Health Organization (WHO) and other partners, said Monday that health workers hope…
Four African countries have been chosen for the first phase of a new initiative to improve cancer care, as the African Access Initiative (AAI) launch was announced this week. Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya and Nigeria will participate in the effort to improve cancer survival by identifying patient care and research…
The World Health Organization (WHO) says there are now 37 suspected cases of Ebola virus disease in the Democratic Republic of Congo, while another person has died, bringing the total number of fatalities to four. The latest updated situation report says that new suspected cases were reported in Ngayi for…
The physician who leads the Africa Tobacco-Free Initiative has spoken out against candidate Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus of Ethiopia, just as the final vote for World Health Organization Director-General (WHO DG) looms next week. Dr. Frank Ashall, in an open letter published online Friday in the well-regarded British medical journal The…
Global philanthropist Michael R. Bloomberg – long a champion of cities and sustainability – announced Tuesday the launch of the Partnership for Healthy Cities initiative. Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York City and the World Health Organization (WHO) ambassador for noncommunicable diseases, revealed the list of the first 40…
The World Health Organization says its investigation into an Ebola outbreak in northern Democratic Republic of Congo centers on a 39-year-old man whose fatal symptoms first appeared on April 22. The organization also is focused on two of his contacts. One is a moto-taxi driver who took the man to…
The World Health Organization has confirmed a case of Ebola virus in Democratic Republic of Congo. The case was confirmed Thursday at a Kinshasa laboratory, the WHO said in a series of Twitter messages released Friday afternoon. Three deaths have been reported among a total of nine cases under investigation. The…
With less than a month to go before the World Health Assembly in Geneva, the three finalists for the Director General position are making their final campaign push – and perhaps none more so than Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. In recent days the highly visible Ethiopian candidate has penned an op-ed…
A rare case of monkeypox has been reported in Western Africa, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). In a joint statement issued with Sierra Leone’s Ministry of Health and Sanitation on Friday, WHO confirmed that a 35-year-old male remains in hospital in the coastal Pujehun district near the Liberian…
By Aliko Dangote and Bill Gates This week, more than 138,000 vaccinators will fan out across five African countries in the Lake Chad area in a push to eliminate polio in Africa and rid the world of this terrible disease forever. They will take boats across fast-flowing rivers, ride jeeps…
Air pollution has increased significantly in the last 25 years, and that’s having health consequences especially in low- and middle-income countries, according to a new Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study published in The Lancet medical journal. Researchers found that air pollution – specifically, the small particles measured as less…
Laureen is the editor of Africa Times
As part of the global effort to combat climate change, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has issued its first annual Airborne Dust Bulletin to better understand how dust and sand storms impact humans – and how humans contribute too. “Every year, an estimated 2,000 million tons of dust is emitted into…
Laureen is the editor of Africa Times
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States reported Tuesday that 10 percent of American women with confirmed Zika in pregnancy had babies with birth defects in 2016. The new data were released as the CDC reminded citizens that the mosquito-borne Zika virus is not “last year’s…
A week-long campaign to help end polio is wrapping up in 13 African countries, the World Health Organization (WHO) says. More than 116 million children are receiving vaccinations in what WHO describes as one of the largest synchronized and simultaneous campaigns ever achieved on the African continent. More than 190,000…