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...

Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (PANA) - The HIV/AIDS pandemic persists in Tanzania as a major threat to national development as much as it weighs heavily on the female population and urban residents, according to official findings of the 2011/2012 countrywide surveillance. Full text...

Brazzaville, Congo (PANA) - The WHO Regional Director for Africa, Dr. Luis Sambo, has urged countries affected by neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) in the region to intensify efforts, along with their health and development partners, to raise the profile of these ''diseases of poverty''. Full text...

Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire (PANA) - As African Finance, Planning and Economic Development Ministers gather here to discuss how to accelerate Africa’s industrialisation, a key issue will be whether or not sub-Saharan Africa is ready to harness the demographic dividend. Full text...

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - Nigeria, with over 190,000 people infected, has the highest burden of tuberculosis in Africa and is the 10th most infected country in the world, according to the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA). Full text...

Brazzaville, Congo (PANA) - The World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Director for Africa, Dr Luis Sambo, has reiterated his plea to governments and their health and development partners to increase and sustain political and financial commitments for tuberculosis (TB) control in the WHO African Region. Full text...

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - The Lagos State Government in South-west Nigeria is to provide toll-free telephone lines for attending to urgent issues pertaining to pregnant women and nursing mothers. Full text...

Brazzaville, Congo (PANA) - A three-day regional consultative meeting on "Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) began Wednesday at the headquarters of the Africa Regional Office of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Brazzaville, Congo, PANA reported from here. Full text...

Nairobi, Kenya (PANA) - Kenya is facing a crisis with regards to access to safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene, according to an international non-profit organisation, WASH United. Full text...

Nouvelle-France, Mauritius (PANA) - Mauritian Health and Quality of Life Minister Lormus Bundhoo said Thursday that activities to sensitise and encourage the population to become regular blood donors and contribute to saving life of others are being launched as demand for blood continues to grow each year in the island. Full text...

Brazzaville, Congo (PANA) - The consultative meeting on Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) opened in Brazzaville, Congo, on Wednesday with a call by the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Director for Africa, Dr Luis Sambo, for increased commitment and better coordinated support by partners and donors to tackle NTDs which affect mainly people living in rural areas. Full text...

Dakar, Senegal (PANA) - King Mohammed VI of Morocco and Senegalese President Macky Sall Monday in Cambérène (suburb of Dakar), inaugurated the Mohammed VI ophthalmological clinic that was built and equipped by the Moroccan Alaouite Foundation. Full text...

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria Monday warned that strains of tuberculosis with resistance to multiple drugs could spread widely. Full text...

Nairobi, Kenya (PANA) - In order to help address Africa's healthcare challenges, Orange has unveiled several projects that utilise information and communication technologies (ICTs) to enhance medicare delivery. the communication service provider said here Friday. Full text...

Kigali, Rwanda (PANA) – A team of 16 US surgeons is conducting a series of free goitre operations at the Gitwe Hospital, in Central Rwanda, official sources in Kigali told PANA on Thursday. Full text...

Brazzaville, Congo (PANA) - The World Health Organization (WHO) is to convene a Regional Stakeholders’ Consultative Meeting on Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) in Brazzaville, Congo, 20-22 March, according to a statement issued Thursday by the WHO Regional Full text...

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - A newly-released report has shown that between 50,000 and 100,000 of the babies born in Nigeria annually yearly are HIV positive. Full text...

Port-Louis, Mauritius (PANA) - The Mauritian Health Minister, Lormus Bundhoo, Friday appealed to local institutions to embark on research work in the field of diabetes, saying that the island offered opportunities for research because of its multi-ethnicity status, representing a microcosm of the world population. Full text...

New York, US (PANA) - The Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and UNICEF have welcomed a new case study which found that a baby treated with anti-retroviral drugs in the first 30 hours of life, and who continued on treatment for 18 months, appeared to be ''functionally cured’’. Full text...

Algiers, Algeria (PANA) - The WHO Liaison Office in Algeria has been upgraded to a full-fledged Country Office, following the recent visit to the north African country of the WHO Regional Director for Africa, Dr. Luis Sambo, PANA reported Sunday. Full text...

Bujumbura, Burundi (PANA) – The US will give Burundi additional US$ 3.5 million this year to enable the African country continue its fight against HIV/AIDS and mother-to-child transmission of the disease, diplomatic sources said in Bujumbura, the Burundi capital. Full text...

Abuja, Nigeria (PANA) - The ceremonial breaking of the ground to formally begin the construction of the three factories which will produce biolarvicides under the West African regional Malaria Elimination Campaign Programme took place in Abidjan Thursday, just as the ECOWAS Heads of State and Government were rounding off their 42nd Ordinary Summit. Full text...

Khartoum, Sudan (PANA) - The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) says it is currently responding to a recent outbreak of Haemorrhagic Septicaemia (HS), a bacterial disease that affects the respiratory system in cattle, in parts of South Sudan where some 2,500 cattle are estimated to have died of the disease in the first two months of 2013. Full text...

Brazzaville, Congo (PANA) - A cholera epidemic which hit Congo’s second largest city, Pointe-Noire, has left eight persons dead from the 289 cases reported, Radio Congo Friday quoted the Director of the Health office in Pointe-Noire, Jean-Pierre Michel Ndzondault, as saying. Full text...

Brazzaville, Congo (PANA) - An anonymous cancer patient in Brazzaville, Congo, once declared during a treatment session: “Given the fact that people know so little about cancer, we should be talking about this disease all the time, all year round, and not just in February.” Full text...

Port-Louis, Mauritius (PANA) - The live telecast of a paediatric orthopaedics surgery on a four-year-old girl with severe malformation in the upper limbs on Wednesday is meant to showcase Mauritius as a medical hub in the region, the Mauritian Health and Quality of Life Minister, Lormus Bundhoo, declared here Thursday. Full text...

Geneva, Switzerland (PANA) - More than 360 million people in the world have disabling hearing loss, according to new global estimates on prevalence released by the World Health Organisation (WHO), for International Ear Care Day to be observed globally 3 March). Full text...

Khartoum, Sudan (PANA) - The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Wednesday said it had transported medical supplies to thousands of persons affected by recent tribal conflicts in Darfur region, Western Sudan. Full text...

New York, US (PANA) - The Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the UN Development Programme (UNDP) have called for the renewal of a provision that allows the world’s poorest countries access to life-saving drugs at costs they can afford, ahead of talks on the issue in Geneva, Switzerland, next week. Full text...

Brazzaville, Congo (PANA) – The Director of Health at the Congolese Ministry of Health and Population, Professor Alexis Elira Dokekias, on Monday said an outbreak of cholera since November at Pointe-Noire, Congo's main economic center in the south of the country, has left 6 dead out of 224 cases reported. Full text...

Brazzaville, Congo (PANA) - The Congolese government has said it will put in place a mechanism which will guarantee free access to health care for all its poor citizens by 2014, the Congolese Health General-Director, Alexis Elira Dokekias, said here Friday. Full text...

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - Top officials from health and finance ministries from 27 countries joined other high-level health and development stakeholders at a two-day meeting this week in Geneva, Switzerland, to discuss ways that countries are progressing towards universal health coverage. Full text...

Nairobi, Kenya (PANA) - A new report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Health Organization (WHO) has shown that many synthetic chemicals, untested for their disrupting effects on the hormone system, could have significant health implications. Full text...

Brazzaville, Congo (PANA) – Twenty per cent of Congolese children (or one in every five children) are affected by malnutrition, according to Mrs. Marianne Flach, the country representative of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) in Congo, announced here Monday. Full text...

Brazzaville, Congo (PANA) - The proposed African Public Health Emergency Fund (APHEF) is now ready to take off with the contribution of US$1.8 million by five countries – Angola, Eritrea, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Director for Africa, Dr. Luis Sambo. Full text...

Brazzaville, Congo (PANA) – The Africa regional director of the World Health Organization (WHO), Dr Lius Gomes Sambo, on Friday disclosed that cases of malaria and deaths caused by the disease have slumped by 50% in 13 of the 46 WHO Africa region countries. Full text...

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - Participants at a meeting of global leaders in health statistics, hosted by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in Geneva, Switzerland, this week, have agreed unanimously on the need for increased investment in data collection, particularly on deaths and their causes. Full text...

Nairobi, Kenya (PANA) - The World Bank has called for reforms and the strengthening of health ministries as part of a package to deliver universal health coverage in most countries in the world. Full text...

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - The Ministry of Health of Chad is launching an emergency mass-vaccination campaign against yellow fever from 22 Feb. 2013, following laboratory confirmation of two cases in the country in December 2012, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said in a dispatch obtained by PANA here Thursday. Full text...

Kigali, Rwanda (PANA) – At least, four female nurses have been arrested in Rwanda with forged certificates, police sources said here on Tuesday. Full text...

New York, US (PANA) - UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has strongly condemned the killing in north-eastern Nigeria of three doctors from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, calling the attack and other recent incidents of violence against health workers “unacceptable’’. Full text...

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - UNICEF and the World Health Organisation (WHO) have joined the Nigeria government in condemning attacks in the country's northern Kano state that left nine health workers dead Friday. Full text...

Port-Louis, Mauritius (PANA) - Health education and promotion campaigns have shown slow results and have not reached their targets in the past 15 years, Mauritian Health Minister Lormus Bundhoo, observed Thursday at a workshop in Domaine Les Pailles, near Port-Louis, the Mauritian capital. Full text...

Nairobi, Kenya (PANA) - A new report released by the UN Wednesday points to fewer girls being subjected to female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C). Full text...

Port-Louis, Maurice (PANA) – Mauritius will soon set up a national cancer institute in an effort to better understand the disease, the health minister, Lormus Bundhoo told PANA this Wednesday. Full text...

New York, US (PANA) – UN Population Fund (UNFPA) and the UN Children Fund (UNICEF) on Wednesday called for more action to check the practice of Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C). Full text...

Douala, Cameroon (PANA) – Nearly 95 per cent of Cameroonians are against female genital mutilation (FGM), according to the 2012 report of the National Commission for Human Rights and Freedoms. Full text...

Paris, France (PANA) – Former Prime Minister of the Central African Republic, Jean Paul Ngoupande, died late Monday of stroke, his family told PANA here. Full text...

Port-Louis, Mauritius (PANA) - China has agreed to fund the construction of health facilities in Mauritius, to the tune of US$ 19 million, following an agreement signed between the two countries, a PANA Correspondent reported from here Tuesday. Full text...

Khartoum, Sudan (PANA) - Japan says it is cooperating with the Sudan, via UNICEF, to provide training for almost 2,000 village midwives in 12 Sudanese state, thus helping in the provision of lifesaving function for mother and new born children. Full text...