Attachments
Overview
This Weekly Bulletin focuses on public health emergencies occurring in the WHO African Region. The WHO Health Emergencies Programme is currently monitoring 68 events in the region. This week’s main articles cover key new and ongoing events, including:
- Humanitarian crisis in Democratic Republic of the Congo
- Malaria outbreak in Burundi
- Humanitarian crisis in South Sudan
- Ebola virus disease in Democratic Republic of the Congo.
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 recent events that have largely been controlled and thus closed.
Major issues and challenges include:
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While humanitarian access in South Sudan is improving, more than 6 million people are classified as in crisis or worse for acute food insecurity. There is therefore an urgency to scale up the response to this in particular to provide case management for acute malnutrition alongside interventions that will have a longer-term impact to improve the livelihood of affected populations.
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In Burundi more than 7 million people have now been affected by malaria this year, with nearly 140 000 cases in the last week. To address this, additional resources need to be mobilised to scale up the current response strategies. Community acceptance of key vector control activities such as bed net distribution, indoor insecticide spraying and removal of potential breeding sites will be key to see the incidence decrease.