This Weekly Bulletin focuses on selected acute public health emergencies occurring in the WHO African Region. The WHO Health Emergencies Programme is currently monitoring 47 events in the region. This week’s edition covers key new and ongoing events, including:
- Rift Valley fever in Uganda
- Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever in Mauritania
- Lassa fever in Liberia
- Typhoid fever in Zimbabwe
- Plague in Madagascar
- Humanitarian crisis in South Sudan
- Humanitarian crisis in Mali.
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:
The simultaneous occurrence and confirmation of Rift Valley fever in two districts (Kiboga and Mityana) in Uganda may be indicative of a much wider spread of the disease, thus calling for particular attention and actions.
There is a steady decline in the incidence of plague in Madagascar and the urban pneumonic plague outbreak has been contained. However, because plague is endemic in Madagascar and as the plague season lasts from September to April, more cases of bubonic and sporadic pneumonic plague are expected to be reported until April 2018. It is therefore important that control measures continue through to the end of the plague season.