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WHO AFRO Outbreaks and Other Emergencies, Week 46: 11 - 17 November 2019 Data as reported by: 17:00; 17 November 2019

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This Weekly Bulletin focuses on public health emergencies occurring in the WHO African Region. The WHO Health Emergencies Programme is currently monitoring 64 events in the region. This week’s main articles cover key new and ongoing events, including:

  • Yellow fever in Nigeria
  • Cholera in Burundi
  • Circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 in Côte d’Ivoire
  • 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:

  • The yellow fever outbreak in Nigeria is still ongoing two years after its official notification in September 2017. Following an upsurge in the number of cases in late September 2019, the weekly case incidence has shown a steep decline over the past six weeks. However, suboptimal surveillance and low vaccination coverage in some areas need to be addressed in order to bring this outbreak under control.

  • The Ebola virus disease outbreak in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, although showing a welcome decline in the number of new confirmed case weekly, continues to show transmission in Beni, Mabalako and Mandima Health Zones. Ongoing chains of transmission appear to be related to difficulty with contact follow up, shown by sub-optimal contact tracing percentages and continuing detection of new cases among community deaths. These issues need to be addressed urgently in order to finally bring the outbreak to a close.