Feature Stories

Nairobi/Kinshasa ‒ World Health Organization (WHO) today delivered 14 metric tons of medical supplies and equipment to the Democratic Republic of the Congo to support infection prevention and control and case management for the ongoing response to halt the mpox outbreak.

Monrovia – Late one night, 44-year-old Irene Mabande’s four-year-old daughter Emerald suffered a severe asthma attack at home in Tubmanburg, the capital of Bomi County in the northwest of Liberia. “She was striving for air. She couldn’t breathe on her own,” Mabande recalls. “In the hospital, they don’t have a nebulizer for asthmatic patients, so the only thing that could bring her back was oxygen.”

Juba ‒ Cecilia Achuwor, a 38-year-old mother of six children, is one of the hundreds of thousands of refugees and returnees who have crossed the border into South Sudan since the beginning of the conflict in neighbouring Sudan 16 months ago. “My husband remains in Khartoum,” she says. “We separated from him without any communication. He doesn’t know where we are and we also don’t know where he is. I am here alone with the children, and they are all sick,” she says. 

Pretoria – One night in September 2023, 21-year-old university student Sinalo Tungwashe, who had been experiencing flu-like symptoms for some weeks, was roused from a fitful sleep by sharp chest pains. “I was struggling to breathe,” he recalls. “I knew that something was not normal. For a second, I thought I was about to die.”

Sokodé –​​​​ In Togo, the health landscape is characterized by high morbidity and maternal mortality rates. According to the National Health Development Plan (NHDP 2023–2027), the maternal mortality rate in 2021 was 399 deaths per 100 000 live births, a slight improvement from the 401 deaths per 100 000 live births reported in the 2013–2014 Demographic and Health Survey (DHS).

Malabo ‒ Equatorial Guinea has made remarkable progress in its fight against tuberculosis (TB), with screening rates increasing significantly from 34% to 87% between 2020 and 2023. This progress is thanks to the implementation of a national strategy supported by World Health Organization (WHO) and the adoption of cutting-edge diagnostic tools.

Luanda – When municipal health promotion supervisor Papa Diabanza underwent intensive training as part of a strategy to boost epidemiological surveillance and disease prevention in Angola, he became an important cog in the country’s renewed bid to leverage local communities in an effort to improve response time to health emergencies.

Moroni ‒ In the Comoros, an oral health project supported by World Health Organization (WHO) and involving thousands of children aged 5–12 years, has provided free dental care and consultations to detect any associated heart disease. 

Oral diseases increase the risk of heart disease due to inflammation of the gums, as bacteria in the mouth can spread through blood vessels and cause serious infections such as endocarditis, or cardiovascular diseases such as atherosclerosis and cardiac arrest.

Bujumbura – “It’s unacceptable that in 2024, children are still born with HIV,” says Novela Irakoze, a woman living who with HIV and advocate for prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV. “I was born with HIV and my goal is to protect children from experiencing what I did.”

Novela is part of a group called Mentor Mothers, which supports pregnant women living with HIV in receiving treatment to protect their babies from HIV.