Day: March 16, 2022

Luanda – The country registered, in the last 24 hours, 29 new cases, no deaths and the recovery of four patients.

The new cases were recorded 15 in Luanda, 5 in Zaire, 4 in Bengo, 3 in Cabinda, 1 in Benguela and 1 in Huambo, aged between 8 and 61 years old, 22 of them male and 7 female.

According to the epidemiological bulletin of the National Directorate of Public Health (DNSP), in the same period no deaths were reported, however four people, aged between 18 and 54 were recovered, all in Huambo.

The laboratories processed 1,364 samples by RT-PCR with a daily positivity rate of 2.1%. Cumulatively, 1.472.075 samples were processed with a positivity rate of 6.7%.

Angola registers 98.985 cases, 96.939 recovered, 1.900 deaths and 146 active (of which 3 moderate, 3 mild and 140 asymptomatic).

Six patients are hospitalised, 4 in institutional quarantine and 140 in home isolation.

Source: Angola Press News Agency

Addis Ababa, 16 March 2022—One year ago, Ethiopia received its first COVID-19 vaccine doses from the COVAX with a total of 2.2 million doses and lunched the COVID 19 vaccination on 13 March 2021. To date, more than 21.5 million people received at least one dose and more than 20.5 people have been fully vaccinated. Efforts are ongoing to increase vaccine uptake to reach a wider proportion of the population.

Since the first shipments, the country has so far received 45,411,750 COVID-19 vaccine doses, of which 40,696,550 are from COVAX, 1,005,200 from the African Vaccine Acquisition Task Team, 3,700,000 from bilateral donations, and 10,000 from CDC. A total of 28,705,008 doses of vaccines were administered since the launching.

There was vaccine hesitancy in bigger cities and towns, which attributed to the slow vaccine uptake in the beginning. Intensified advocacy, social mobilization and community awareness creation activities were undertaken by the Ministry of Health and regional health bureaus in collaboration with partners. Community conversations were held with close involvement of stakeholders, including community elders and the administrative structure, all of which helped increase vaccine uptake.

“Despite the major challenges with vaccine supplies, the Ethiopian Ministry of Health has made great efforts to increase the vaccine uptake, including expanding vaccination sites, ensuring effective use of available stocks, mobilizing communities and addressing doubts and misinformation,” said Dr Boureima Hama Sambo, WHO Representative in Ethiopia. “WHO congratulates Ethiopia on the progress to date in increasing vaccine coverage and will continue to support the government and its partners to achieve its goals of protecting the Ethiopian people.”

The Ministry of Health (MoH) conducted two rounds of nationwide COVID-19 vaccination campaigns, which significantly increased coverage. Nearly 6.2 million vaccine doses were distributed during the first round of the vaccination campaign and 19.8 million vaccine doses have been distributed for the ongoing the second-round campaign. The second-round campaign reached a record high on 18 February, three days after the launch of the campaign, when more than 2.2 million people were vaccinated on a single day – the highest single-day vaccine coverage in the WHO African Region.

WHO continues to support the country to scale up COVID-19 vaccine uptake, which will hopefully limit the rate of infection, transmission and the emergence of variants, as well as stepping up surveillance, genome sequencing capacity, increasing testing to facilitate early detection and response to cluster of cases. WHO is also continuing to support the efforts to adhere to public health and social measures until the pandemic is controlled.

Source: World Health Organization. Africa

Dar es Salaam, 16 March 2022 – Two years ago today, Tanzania recorded its first COVID-19 case. The virus was first declared in Arusha before spreading to other locations. So far, the country has recorded 33,773 cases and 800 deaths, according to the Ministry of Health report of 11 March 2021.

In the two years, public health measures, including improved surveillance and contract tracing, testing public awareness about preventive measures have been crucial in curbing the spread of the virus. Vaccination is also being stepped up to help control the pandemic, with a goal to vaccinate 60 percent of the population.

For the period of January 2020 to December 2021, the World Health Organization (WHO) received a total of USD 6.6 million from different donors that have been directed towards different activities of the response including the donation of equipment, training of various cadres of health workers and health managers, and deployment of experts.

“WHO is grateful to different donors, supporters, and health workers for the effort that they have put in preparedness and responding to the pandemic. We hope that the collaboration will continue as we step ahead and hope that in a foreseeable future Tanzania will contribute to making COVID-19 no longer a public health threat,” says Dr Tigest Ketsela Mengestu, WHO Representative in Tanzania.

WHO continues to support the country to bolster key pandemic response measures such as surveillance, testing, treatment, and community engagement. Throughout the pandemic, the organization has also provided technical guidance and delivered essential medical supplies and equipment to the country to combat the virus.

“We’ve been at the forefront of the efforts to beat this pandemic and continue to support Government and partners’ efforts to effectively tackle the disease and keep nation safe,” said Dr Mengestu,

Vaccination remains a powerful weapon against this pandemic. WHO is working with partner organizations to step up the uptake in the country. So far 2,664,373 people have been fully vaccinated. More efforts are needed to reach the wider population to protect them from the risk of severe illness and death.

In the most recent situation reports of the state of COVID-19 in Tanzania, the Ministry of Health authorities continued to caution the public to continue taking precautions by following all prevention measures in public spaces.

“The past two years have been extremely challenging, but we’ve learned crucial public health lessons. We are emerging stronger and look forward to bolstering and improving the health system to be more resilient to future emergencies.”

Source: World Health Organization. Africa

Monrovia, 16 March 2022 – Two years ago today, Liberia recorded its first COVID-19 case. The virus was first declared in Monrovia before spreading to other locations. So far, the country has recorded 7,397 cases and 294 deaths.

In the two years since, public health measures, including social distancing, mandatory mask wearing, improved testing, treatment, and surveillance have been crucial in curbing the spread of the virus. Vaccination is also being stepped up to help control the pandemic.

To mark this milestone, authorities that have been on the forefront leading in the response reflected on where they have come from thus far.

“People in Liberia were scared when the first case was verified because they didn’t know what to anticipate and our health facilities were overburdened over time. It wasn’t easy, but with time, the general public learned more of the COVID-19 pandemic and began to take preventive measures seriously. The Ebola virus response experience aided us in quickly assembling all resources and fighting the pandemic”, narrated the Honourable Minister of Health- Dr. Wilhelmina Jallah.

The government of Liberia instituted various players at all levels including the setup of a National Coordination Response team on COVID-19.

“When the first case was detected and confirmed everyone started to panic, we never thought COVID would come here but 1 person brought it in and changed the story- same as Ebola. We had to fight and we fought very hard. The incident management team with support from donor partners- worked very hard. We made sure we got the information to the communities- we went to the last mile. Yes, it was sad, a lot of people got exposed, others recovered and some did not make it,” exclaimed Madam Mary Broh, National Coordinator on the COVID-19 response.

With strong coordinated efforts among donor partners supporting the government, Liberia moved swiftly into action on the ground.

“As a donor group, we coordinated well- moving IPC supplies around the country, this stood out to me as a good coordination example, as did community engagement – when we went into communities together to encourage COVID-19 testing,” said M.s Jessica Healy- USAID Health Director in Liberia. “I was also impressed with the Airport management, Starbase treatment center, oxygen plants, and improved Laboratory management which stand out as lasting sector improvements to outlive the pandemic and are areas of pride.”

World Health Organization (WHO) continues to support the country to bolster key pandemic response measures such as surveillance, testing, treatment, and community engagement. Throughout the pandemic, the Organization has also provided technical guidance and support and with its partners delivered crucial medical supplies and equipment to the country to combat the virus.

“We’ve been at the forefront of the efforts to beat back this pandemic and continue to support all the efforts the national authorities are undertaking to effectively tackle COVID-19 and keep people safe,” said. Dr. Peter Clement, WHO Representative in Liberia.

Vaccination remains a powerful weapon against this pandemic. WHO is working with partner organizations to step up the uptake in the country. So far 1,015,633 people have been fully vaccinated. More efforts are needed to reach the wider population to protect them from the risk of severe illness and death.

Expressing her appreciation Dr .Jallah said “We are a resilient people but COVID-19 has pushed us to the limit. This has demonstrated the importance of preparedness to respond efficiently to health emergencies and resulting in our ability to take messages on COVID-19 and vaccination to the last mile. We greatly appreciate the support of our partners- the United Nations led by WHO, USAID, CDC and many others, who particularly supported the Ministry of Health”

“The past two years have been extremely challenging, but we’ve learned crucial public health lessons. We are emerging stronger and look forward to bolstering and improving the health system to be more resilient to future emergencies.” – Dr Peter Clement- WHO Representative Liberia.

Source: World Health Organization. Africa

Lusaka – On 14 March 2022, the High Commissioner of Canada to the United Republic of Tanzania, the Republic of Zambia, the Seychelles, and Ambassador of Canada to the Union of Comoros, HE Pamela O’Donnell visited the World Health Organization (WHO) Zambia to learn about WHO’s work and discuss steps and achievements made in the implementation of the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator (ACT-A) program funded by the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade of Canada.

In April 2021, WHO and Canada signed a global grant for a contribution of 100m Canadian dollars (about US$ 78.5m) to the WHO ACT-A Health Systems Connector Implementation of which WHO Zambia received an allocation of US$ 674,385. Since joining the ACT-Accelerator on May 4, 2020, Canada has contributed more than 1.3 billion Canadian dollars (about US$ 1.1bn) to the ACT-A, an unprecedented initiative that brings together governments, scientists, businesses, civil society, philanthropists and global health organizations to address challenges related to COVID-19 and protect everyone from this new virus and to support COVID-19 response and the continuity of essential health services during the pandemic.

The kind support from the Government of Canada comes at a time when WHO Zambia is aiming to build a resilient national and local health system, one that has strong emergency preparedness capacity, able to respond to different types of health hazards and ensure continuity in the delivery of quality and equitable health services during such times.

The implementation of the ACT-A has so far seen WHO Zambia conduct the first and second round frontline health service capacity and readiness assessment of 253 health facilities and 50 health posts in COVID-19 case management capacity, continuity of essential health services, community needs, perceptions, COVID-19 prevention and care, and health service resilience.

Further, the grant has enabled WHO and Global Fund support the Ministry of Health (MoH) to conduct a harmonized health facility assessment in 3229 health facilities in Urban, Rural, Public, Private and NGO hospitals, health centers and health posts across the country. With the data collected, WHO Zambia in collaboration with cooperating partners is working to analyze, interpret and develop policy briefs that will guide the National Health Strategic Plan (NHSP) 2022 -2026 implementation and in building a better resilient health system in the post COVID-19 era.

“The Harmonized Health Facility Assessment Census is the first of its kind in the Africa region and we are very grateful to Canada for the support making this happen”, said Dr Nathan Bakyaita. WHO Representative to Zambia.

“Canada is pleased to support Zambia’s COVID-19 response while also strengthening health service delivery. Investments to improve the resiliency of health systems will help ensure better responses to future public health emergencies and save lives.” said H.E. Pamela O’Donnell.

The ACT-A main objective is to support the development and equitable distribution of diagnostics, treatments, vaccines and protective personal equipment to reduce mortality and severe disease, restoring full societal and economic activity globally. It focuses on four priority pillars with a focus on two major thrusts including addressing country specific health systems bottlenecks to enhance readiness for delivery of new tools and rapidly scaling up essential health system commodities and tools to ensure the continuity of other health services.

Source: World Health Organization. Africa