Niamey, Niger (PANA) - Authorities in Niger Republic have expressed optimism that the West African country is on the path to meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) four, which focuses on reducing child mortality rates to two thirds by 2015. Full text...

Tillaberi, Niger(PANA) - Collaborative efforts among communities, religious and political leaders, as well as development partners with the government will help improve people's access, particularly women, to health service delivery in Niger, a government official has said Full text...

Niamey, Niger (PANA) - The rise in Niger Republic's population from 10,790,352 to 17,129.,076, as announced last month by the National Institute of Statistics (INS), should be seen as a wake-up call for stakeholders in the health sector to fast track family planning campaign, according to the UNFPA's Assistant Representative in the country, Hassane Ali. Full text...

Geneva, Switzerland ) PANA) - The world has made dramatic progress in improving health in the poorest countries and narrowing the gaps between countries with the best and worst health status in the past two decades, according to the World Health Statistics 2013. Full text...

Port Louis, Mauritius (PANA) - Despite the decline in cigarette consumption per capita from 1,075 in 2009 to 750 in 2012, tobacco still kills 1,000 Mauritians every year, according to Mauritian Health Minister Lormus Bundhoo. Full text...

Dakar, Senegal (PANA) – The chairman of the Senegalese Cardiology Association, Serigne Abdoul Ba, on Tuesday has described cardiovascular diseases as some of the main development challenges in the 21st century and must be included in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in the health sector. Full text...

Niamey, Niger (PANA) - African countries have been urged to deploy more resources into the health sector, especially issues of sexual and reproductive health, with a view to improving the overall well being of the society. Full text...

Port-Louis, Mauritius (PANA) - The Mauritian Health Ministry Monday began an anti-influenza vaccination campaign for the elderly and the disabled, PANA reported from here. Full text...

Bujumbura, Burundi (PANA) - Burundi is to receive financial aid to the tune of US$62 million from the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the Executive Director of the UNAIDS, Mr. Michel Sidibé, has announced. Full text...

New York, US (PANA) - A joint report released here Monday by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) has warned that at the current rate of progress, the 2015 Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target of halving the proportion of the 1990 population without sanitation will be missed by eight per cent - or half a billion people. Full text...

New York, US (PANA) - The World Health Organization (WHO) and South Sudan will carry out a vaccination campaign to address a meningitis outbreak in the Upper Nile state that has killed three people, a WHO statement said on Friday. Full text...

Dakar, Senegal (PANA) - Over 200,000 people are expected to receive free medical care on Friday (10May) as Rotary International marks its ''Family Health Day'' in three African countries. Full text...

Bujumbura, Burundi (PANA) – The executive director of the UNAIDS, Michel Sidibé, on Wednesday pledged US$62 million to help Burundi speed up the implementation of the national mother-child HIV/AIDS transmission programme for the next three years. Full text...

Niamey, Niger (PANA) - The European Union (EU) and the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) on Tuesday announced a grant of CFAF 6.2 billion (US$12.3 million) to Niger as part funding for a project to end malnutrition in the country, official sources told PANA. Full text...

New York, US (PANA) - UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has stressed the need for the private sector to contribute more to improving maternal health services across the world through the UN's 'Every Woman, Every Child' initiative. Full text...

Nouakchott, Mauritania (PANA) – As part of efforts to speed up the fight against malaria, Health Ministers from six West and central African States -- Mauritania, Senegal, Gambia, Guinea, Mali and Chad -- began a meeting Tuesday in Nouakchott, the Mauritanian capital. Full text...

Bujumbura, Burundi (PANA) – The Executive Director of the United Nations Agency for HIV/AIDS, Michel Sidibi, has begun a three-day working visit to Burundi, so says a communiqué from the UN Office in Burundi. Full text...

New York, US (PANA) - The UN Population Fund (UNFPA) on Monday commended midwives for their crucial role in improving maternal health, family planning and assisting during humanitarian emergencies, saying that midwives make the difference between life and death for hundreds of thousands of women every year. Full text...

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - As kidnapping for ransom continues unabated in Nigeria, doctors in the country's South-eastern state of Ebonyi have dropped their stethoscopes following the abduction of their professional colleague. Full text...

Gaborone, Botswana (PANA) - Chinese and African leaders were due to meet, starting on Monday, at the 4th International Roundtable on China-Africa Health Cooperation, to explore new partnerships to address some of the most pressing health challenges facing Africa and strengthen an innovative health partnership based on south-south cooperation. Full text...

Nouakchott, Mauritania (PANA) – A sub-regional meeting to tackle the malaria scourge begins Sunday in the Mauritanian capital, Nouakchott, official sources told PANA Saturday. Full text...

Paris, France (PANA) - The number of Insecticide Treated Nets (ITNs) distributed in Africa as part of the fight against malaria has dropped significantly, from 145 million in 2010 to only 77 million in 2012, Dr. Fatoumata Nafo Traoré, Director of the Roll Back Malaria Partnership, told PANA here Friday Full text...

Geneva, Switzerland (PANA) - Ahead of the 2013 Hand Hygiene Day (5 May), the World Health Organization (WHO) has urged patients and their family members to join health workers in their efforts to practice good hand hygiene. Full text...

Accra, Ghana (PANA) - Striking Ghanaian doctors are questioning the decision of the government to bring in Cuban doctors to assist in health delivery in state-owned health facilities, describing it as a very expensive venture. Full text...

Accra, Ghana (PANA) – Ghana on Tuesday signed an agreement with Cuba to supply the West African state with more doctors. Full text...

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - Ahead of the expected certification of Nigeria as a guinea worm-free nation by the World Health Organization (WHO), the government has offered a 25,000-naira (US$157) for every report of authentic new guinea worm case in any part of the country. Full text...

Bugabwe, Uganda (PANA) - Uganda has formally introduced the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) into the country’s routine immunization schedule to avert infant and child deaths due to pneumococcal disease. Full text...

New York, US (PANA) - UN Secretary-General’s newly-appointed Special Envoy for Financing the Health Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and for Malaria, Mr. Ray Chambers, on Thursday called for concerted efforts to save the lives of 4.4 million children from malaria. Full text...

Lusaka, Zambia (PANA) - A regional initiative that aims to eliminate malaria in the Zambezi valley was launched Thursday by Zambia and Zimbabwe, with support from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Full text...

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (PANA) - While Africa is at a transition point in battling communicable diseases, it is confronted by an increasing burden of non-communicable diseases and neglected tropical illnesses continue to pose a significant threat, a senior official of the African Union Commission (AUC) said here Thursday. Full text...

Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (PANA) - A new six-year plan to eradicate all types of polio disease by 2018 was presented Thursday at the Global Vaccine Summit here. Full text...

Geneva, Switzerland (PANA) - The World Health Organization (WHO) has estimated that US$5.1 billion is needed every year between 2011 and 2020 to achieve universal access to malaria prevention, diagnostic testing, and treatment around the world. Full text...

Geneva, Switzerland (PANA) - Amid the reported resistance in some parts of the world to artemisinin, the core component for the artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs), the drug of choice against malaria, the World Health Organization (WHO) said it had launched an emergency response to Artemisinin Resistance. Full text...

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (PANA) - Up to 90% of the global burden of neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) is believed to occur in Africa, where, besides thriving in heat and humidity, these diseases persist in conditions of poverty, according to organisers of the sixth African Union (AU) health ministers conference, holding here this week. Full text...

Paris, France (PANA) - Boubacar Ba, the first president of the University of Niamey (1971-1979) and an Associate Professor of Mathematics, has died at age 78 in Paris, PANA learnt Monday from family members in the French capital. Full text...

Port-Louis, Mauritius (PANA) - Mauritian authorities have strengthened vigilance at their entry points following the outbreak of the Avian Influenza Virus A (H7N9) in China. Full text...

Brazzaville, Congo (PANA) - Three out of 10 African children have not received vaccination for the first time in their life, Dr. Richard Mihigo, coordinator of the routine immunization and new vaccines programme at the World Health Organization (WHO), said. Full text...

Port-Louis, Mauritius (PANA) - Quoting a study by the Mauritius Institute of Health in collaboration with private health institutions in March/April 2011, the Mauritian Health Minister, Lormus Bundhoo, told Parliament Tuesday that the rate of caesarian section was around 43.9% in 2012 as against the 44.4% recorded in 2009. Full text...

Mogadishu, Somalia (PANA) - The war inside Somalia, which has raged for more than 22 years, has taken its toll on the health of the population, forced to live without any semblance of a national health infrastructure for a better part of over two decades. Full text...

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has unveiled plans to fortify its interventions for child survival in Nigeria, according to the local Daily Independent newspaper. Full text...

Washington, DC, US (PANA) - A new Global Action Plan launched on Friday by the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF could save the lives of 2 million children every year from deaths caused by pneumonia and diarrhoea, some of the leading killers of children under five globally. Full text...

Brazzaville, Congo (PANA) - The third African Vaccination Week (AVW), an initiative led by the World Health Organization (WHO) and implemented by countries in the region, will hold 22-28 April, the WHO African Regional Office said here Friday. Full text...

Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (PANA) - Mycotoxins within the human food chain remain one of the most potent sources of morbidity and sometimes mortality in African societies, a senior official of the African Union Commission (AUC) said here Wednesday. Full text...

Accra, Ghana (PANA) – The strike by doctors and pharmacists in government health facilities in Ghana, to demand more money, entered its second day on Tuesday with no end in sight to ease the suffering of patients, PANA reported here. Full text...

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - The British Prime Minister, Mr. David Cameron, has described the death of the country's first female Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, as a great loss to the nation. Full text...

Abuja, Nigeria (PANA) - Condoling with the United Kingdom over the death, Monday morning, of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan said: "Nigerians join the Thatcher family, citizens of Great Britain, members of the Commonwealth and all those in far-flung corners of the world whose lives were positively touched by her dynamic and forward-looking policies in mourning the passage of the celebrated first female British Prime Minister." Full text...

Flic-en-Flac, Mauritius (PANA) - A five-day Regional Meeting on HIV Prevention, Treatment and Care in Prisons in sub-Saharan Africa opened Monday in Flic-en-Flac, western Mauritius, PANA reported from here. Full text...

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - West Africa’s Chief Veterinary Officers have agreed on harmonised standards for key areas in animal health, to be presented to African delegates at the April 2013 meeting of the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) to be held first in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire, followed in May by the organisation’s General Assembly to be held in Paris, France. Full text...

Brazzaville, Congo (PANA) - Over the past couple of years, a number of international organisations, including the World Health Organization (WHO), have issued grim warnings about the growing incidence of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), defined as resistance of a microorganism to an antimicrobial medicine to which it was previously sensitive. Full text...

Dakar, Senegal (PANA) - The director of the Foundation for Research and Medicine in West Africa (AMREF), Dr. Mor Ngom, said Wednesday in Dakar that the lack of skilled health personnel remains a major cause of maternal and infant mortality in sub-Saharan Africa. Full text...