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...

Brazzaville, Congo (PANA) – In order to efficiently reduce mortality due to cancer, the Congolese Government decided Monday in Brazzaville to take other vigorous measures to strengthen mechanisms aimed at fighting the disease, which is fatal in 90 per cent of cases, the Health and Population minister, François Ibovi, announced on the occasion of the celebration of the world cancer control day. Full text...

Port-Louis, Mauritius (PANA) - The Mauritian government Monday launched a cancer control programme in its secondary schools to mark the celebration of the world day against cancer. Full text...

New York, US (PANA) - Equatorial Guinea President Obiang Nguema Mbasogo has donated US$30,000 to a New York-based South African AIDS activist and transatlantic rower, Victor Mooney, according to a statement issued in New York on Tuesday. Full text...

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (PANA) - Ensuring availability of family planning services and their acceptability to every woman, man and to young people, would improve the health of mothers and children in Africa, besides saving health care systems unnecessary expenditure, according to Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin, Executive Director of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA). Full text...

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (PANA) - African countries need to mobilise enough domestic resources and speed up their efforts to reduce the current levels of maternal and infant mortality on the continent, according to heads of state and government gathered here for the 20th ordinary session of the Assembly of the African Union (AU). Full text...

Nouakchott, Mauritania (PANA) - At least 35 cases of acute lung infections have been detected Djigueny, 1,000 kilometres east of Nouakchott, medical sources said on Tuesday. Full text...

Nouakchott, Mauritania (PANA) – Mauritanian president Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, who has just ended a working visit to Abu Dhabi, has gone on to France for a medical check, a communiqué issued by Mauritanian presidency indicated indicated here Friday. Full text...

Geneva, Switzerland (PANA) - The World Health Organisation (WHO) has said the number of measles deaths globally decreased by 71% between 2000 and 2011, from 542,000 to 158,000. Full text...

Geneva, Switzerland (PANA) - The World Health Organisation (WHO) Wednesday announced ''unprecedented progress'' against 17 neglected tropical diseases following a new global strategy, a regular supply of quality assured, cost-effective medicines and support from global partners. Full text...

Nairobi, Kenya (PANA) - The Kenyan contingent to the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) has donated blood to a South Sudanese hospital to help reduce the number of deaths caused by blood shortage, the UN said Wednesday. Full text...

Bujumbura, Burundi (PANA) – The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is assisting the Burundian government step up itsa fight against "avoidable diseases" by introducing the second vaccine dose against measles into the routine national immunization programme with immediate effect, a communiqué said on Tuesday. Full text...

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - Nigeria's regulatory National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has begun a probe into the claim by a university professor to have discovered a herbal drug capable of curing AIDS. Full text...

Nouakchott, Mauritania (PANA) – The medical NGO, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), has expressed alarm at the rate of malnutrition and mortality among Malian children in the M'Bera refugee camp in Eastern Mauritania, a report published Thursday in Nouakchott announced. Full text...

Geneva, Switzerland (PANA) - The Protocol to Eliminate Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products, adopted by the Parties to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) last November, has opened for signature by the Parties in a ceremony at the WHO Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. Full text...

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - The University of Benin in Nigeria's Mid-west Edo State has disowned the claim by one of its professors to have develop a herbal drug that could possible cure AIDS, setting the stage for another controversy over an AIDS cure claim in the country. Full text...

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - A Nigerian university teacher, Prof. Isaiah Ibeh, has announced the development of a herbal drug that can possibly cure AIDS, the local media reported Wednesday. Full text...

Brazzaville, Congo (PANA) – Congo on Tuesday began the construction of a national sickle cell referral centre in the capital, Brazzaville, to fight the disease which claims the lives of 50% of patients before the age of five years, either from acute infection or anaemia. Full text...

Kigali, Rwanda (PANA) – A 38-year-old Congolese woman has given birth to septuplets at the general hospital of Goma, the administrative district of North-Kivu in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Full text...

Abuja, Nigeria (PANA) - Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan Monday pledged that his Administration would continue to commit more resources and effort to accelerating the reduction of maternal and infant mortality in the country. Full text...

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) has warned that people who live under or close to high voltage power lines risk having cancerous diseases because of the radiation that emanates from the facility. Full text...

Nairobi, Kenya (PANA) - Key public health milestones, including the end of polio transmission in India and meeting of the Millennium Development Goal target on drinking water ahead of schedule, were reached in 2012, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said in its review of the year 2012. Full text...

Brazzaville, Congo (PANA) – Participants at the third ordinary session of the national committee for HIV/AIDS in Congo has decided to set up a national fund for HIV/AIDS, according to the final statement from the meeting held on Thursday in the capital Brazzaville. Full text...

Brazzaville, Congo (PANA) - The number of pregnant women affected with HIV/AIDS in the Republic of Congo is on the decrease, Congo’s Minister of Health and Population François Ibovi said here Thursday. Full text...

Port-Louis, Mauritius (PANA) - Mauritius has introduced a new protocol for testing the population as well as incoming foreigners showing signs and symptoms of infections caused by chikungunya and dengue, two insect-borne viral diseases. Full text...

New York, US (PANA) – Amnesty International (AI) on Thursday welcomed a resolution against female genital mutilation (FGM), which was endorsed by the UN General Assembly, a brief statement said. Full text...

Nouakchott, Mauritania (PANA) - Mauritania's former military leader, Mustapha Ould Mohamed Saleck, died Tuesday at the Val de Grace hospital of Paris, France, following a protracted illness, official sources told PANA here Wednesday. Full text...

New York, US (PANA) - The World Health Organisation (WHO) and UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) have condemned Tuesday's multiple attacks that killed six health workers in Pakistan. Full text...

Monrovia, Liberia (PANA) - A new report launched by the World Health Organisation (WHO) says the unacceptably high level of maternal mortality in sub-Saharan Africa calls for a fundamental rethinking of approaches aimed at improving women’s health. Full text...

Monrovia, Liberia (PANA) - The progress made in the global fight against Malaria, one of the world's leading infectious killers, risks being reversed due to the fall in global funding for malaria preventions and slowed progress in the delivery of some life-saving commodities, according to the World Malaria Report 2012 released here Monday. Full text...

New York, US (PANA) - The World Health Organisation’s World Malaria Report 2012 says the looming financial crisis is threatening to stall or even wipe out recent gains in the battle against malaria. Full text...

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - Nigerians travelling out of the country will be compelled to take the oral polio vaccine by May 2013, the local media reported Thursday, quoting Dr Ray Nihar, an official of the World Health Organisation (WHO). Full text...

Dakar, Senegal (PANA) – The coordinator of the national malaria programme in Senegal (PNLP), Dr Mady Ba, on Thursday stressed the necessity to strengthen partnership with all stakeholders and build large coalitions with civil society partners to implement sustained actions for communities affected by malaria. Full text...

Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (PANA) - Strengthening Africa’s immunisation systems, curbing the increase in the number of wild polio virus cases in Nigeria and closing the funding gap for the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) topped the list of recommendations made by the 4th Annual Regional Conference on Immunisation in Africa (ARCI), which ended on Wednesday in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Full text...

Blantyre, Malawi (PANA) - Malawi President Joyce Banda on Wednesday met for an hour with Melinda Gates, wife of American philanthropist Bill Gates, in the capital, Lilongwe, where the two women discussed maternal health and safe motherhood. Full text...

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - The Congolese Ministry of Health will next week launch an emergency mass-vaccination campaign against yellow fever in Ewo District in Cuvette-Ouest (or Western Cuvette) region, the ministry said in a statement in Brazzaville which was received by PANA here Wednesday. Full text...

Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (PANA) - Nigeria, the only polio-endemic country in Africa, has outlined its strategies to interrupt wild polio virus transmission in the country by 2013. Full text...

Cape Town, South Africa (PANA) – Global icon Nelson Mandela is being treated for a lung infection, the Office of South African Presidency confirmed on Tuesday evening. Full text...

Lisbon, Portugal (PANA) - The WHO regional director for Africa, Luis Gomes Sambo, Monday received the distinction of Doctor Honoris Cause by the University of Lisbon, Portugal, PANA reported, quoting the Angolan News Agency (ANGOP). Full text...

Brazzaville, Congo (PANA) - Tanzania's Minister of Health and Social Welfare Hussein Mwinyi Monday opened the fourth meeting of the Annual Regional Conference on Immunisation (ARCI), calling immunization an important component of health systems and a key strategy to reducing child mortality, improve maternal health and combat diseases. Full text...

Khartoum, Sudan (PANA) - The World Health Organisation (WHO) Thursday said a yellow fever vaccination campaign is progressing as planned with the campaign reaching 99 percent in some areas, in the phase 1 of the exercise. Full text...

New York, US (PANA) - The UN Population Fund (UNFPA) Wednesday said Nokia, the mobile communications company, would donate 3,000 clean delivery kits to the Fund as part of the UN agency's Safe Birth campaign. Full text...

Malanje, Angola (PANA) - Over 200,000 children, under the age of five, will be vaccinated against poliomyelitis in the Angolan province of Malanje, the Angolan News Agency (ANGOP) reported Tuesday, indicating that the campaign would take place from 14 to 17 December. Full text...

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - ECOWAS and Venezuela have signed the Work Plan for the implementation of a 2009 Letter of Intent between them for the elimination of Malaria in West Africa, according to an ECOWAS Commission statement obtained by PANA here Tuesday. Full text...

Khartoum, Sudan (PANA) - The Sudanese Ministry of Health has appealed for more doses of the yellow fever vaccine to enable it achieve its target of reaching the targeted population, according to a situation report by the World Health Organization (WHO) office in Khartoum Full text...

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - MSD, a global healthcare leader and a subsidiary of US-based Merck & Co., Inc., has announced the opening of its office in Lagos, Nigeria's economic capital city. Full text...

Khartoum, Sudan (PANA) - The peacekeeping mission in Darfur region has come up with a huge logistics support to roll back the spread of yellow fever in the trouble-ridden region. Full text...

New York, US (PANA) – UN officials on Saturday mark the World AIDS Day with a call for building on recent successes and pressing ahead to get to zero new HIV infections, zero discrimination and zero AIDS-related deaths by 2015. Full text...

Nairobi, Kenya (PANA) - Global pharmaceutical and chemical company, Merck, has symbolically donated the 100 millionth praziquantel tablet to the World Health Organisation (WHO) within the scope of its donation programme, the company said in a statement obtained by PANA here Friday. Full text...

Geneva, Switzerland (PANA) - Some 1.7 million people died of AIDS in 2011, 600,000 less than the figure for 2005, according to a statement by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to mark the World AIDS Day 2012, to be observed 1 Dec. Full text...