Health
WHO urges faster action on lead, which kills 3.5 million a year
Fewer than half of countries have binding controls on lead paint. Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, Rwanda, South Africa and Tanzania are getting help to test children's blood.
Section
Health
Medicine, public health and the systems that keep 1.5 billion people well — outbreaks, breakthroughs and the people on the front line.
Health
Soap and water could save South African children, minister says
Nearly 3,000 children under five died of diarrhoea, flu and pneumonia in 2024. On Global Handwashing Day, the government asked parents and teachers to make clean hands a habit.
Health
New TB vaccines could save 7.3 million lives, and Africa should prepare now
The first new tuberculosis vaccines in a century could arrive by 2029. Gavi says the countries that plan before approval will get them fastest, as they did with malaria.
Health
Uganda begins testing a vaccine against the Ebola strain that has none
Scientists in Masaka have started a first human trial of a vaccine against the Bundibugyo strain behind Congo's outbreak. Congo itself starts a larger trial this month.
Health
Africa CDC cannot trace $700m given for Congo's Ebola response
Donors say they paid out $962 million; a joint check found just over $200 million reached the groups running the response. Fewer than 30% of partners came to account for it.
Health
Tanzania's hospitals have nearly doubled their beds since 2021
Twenty-seven years after Julius Nyerere's death, the country he set against poverty, ignorance and disease reports ICU beds up sixfold and maternal deaths sharply down.
Health
Kenya confirms a second Ebola case, a relative already in quarantine
The 39-year-old developed symptoms while isolated as a close contact of Kenya's first case, who died in Nairobi on 5 October.
Health
Nigeria adds 5,000 clinics to its basic health fund and releases ₦40.7bn
More than 13,000 primary health centres will now benefit, and about 90,000 prisoners are being brought into health insurance.
Health
Nigerian Senate advances bill to stop punishing attempted suicide
Most senators backed treating it as a medical emergency. Senate President Godswill Akpabio said survivors should still face jail.
Health
Africa builds one table for its primary health care plans
A new continental mechanism rests on a simple rule: countries lead, regional bodies coordinate, partners support. It comes with scorecards and annual reviews.
Health
Every Ebola dollar must be traceable, Africa's health agency says
Donors have pledged $2.9bn for the outbreak in DR Congo. Africa CDC is backing Kinshasa's demand that every organisation report what it received and spent.
Health
South Africa's cervical cancer vaccine is working
Infection with the virus behind the disease is 83% lower among teenage girls who were offered the jab. Now a doctor born two kilometres away is taking same-day screening to rural Mpumalanga.
Health
Guinea-Bissau approves disputed newborn vaccine trial
Half of 14,000 babies would go without the hepatitis B vaccine for their first six weeks. Africa's public health agency opposes the US-funded study.
Health
High blood pressure drives a quarter of Africa's chronic disease deaths
Heart disease, stroke, kidney disease and diabetes killed 4.7 million Africans in 2023, a Lancet analysis finds. More than half the deaths trace to three preventable risks.
Health
Lassa fever has killed 268 Nigerians this year
Nearly one in four confirmed patients has died, up from fewer than one in five last year. Health officials blame late arrival at hospital and the cost of treatment.
Health
Kenya declares Ebola a formidable epidemic disease
New rules cover screening, quarantine, contact tracing and burials. The WHO says 94 of 127 listed contacts are in quarantine, and advises against travel bans.
Health
Drought and war push Darfur and Kordofan towards famine
A UN-backed hunger monitor says child malnutrition in two Darfur camps is above the famine threshold, and only a quarter of the sickest children are being treated.
Health
Ebola has left 1,900 Congolese children without a parent
Children are a quarter of the cases but a third of the deaths. Among the under-fives who catch it, seven in ten die.
Health
East Africa plans 34 mobile labs to catch outbreaks early
Health ministers from eight countries also agreed to buy medicines together and to share outbreak intelligence in real time.
Health
Zimbabwe's clinics have half the medicines they need
The health ministry asked for ZWG89 billion for 2027 and was told to plan for a third of that. Dialysis supplies and blood are already running short.
Health
How Kenya's first Ebola case got past two airport checks
The man was screened in Entebbe and again in Nairobi and was not flagged. Health officials say fever checks alone were never going to be enough.
Health
Ghana drills its outbreak command centres
Fifty specialists from across the country trained in Accra to run the operations rooms that coordinate a response when disease strikes.
Health
Kenya has 108 Ebola contacts in quarantine, none ill
No new infection has been found since the first case was confirmed on 6 October. Borders and airports remain open.
Health
Nigeria's governors pledge a national fund to fight malnutrition
After studying Ethiopia's approach, all 36 state governors also resolved to declare a nationwide nutrition emergency.
Health
Egypt and African Union agency plan push on local medicines
The two agreed in Berlin to draw up a long-term plan to make more drugs and vaccines in Africa. No projects or funding have been announced.
Health
Ebola: 8,728 cases, and most deaths are outside clinics
The World Health Organization's latest count from DR Congo shows about 72 new cases a day. Of 379 recent deaths, 264 happened in the community.
Health
Bundibugyo: the Ebola strain with no vaccine
The virus behind the outbreak in DR Congo is a rarer cousin of the one the world learned to vaccinate against. Here is what is known about it.
Health
Congolese scientist Jean-Jacques Muyembe receives the 2026 Virchow Prize in Berlin
Fifty years after he confronted the first Ebola outbreak in Yambuku, the Congolese virologist is honoured alongside Peter Piot with one of global health's most prestigious awards — a recognition of African scientific leadership.
Health
Africa to question candidates for WHO's top job
Health and finance ministers from 54 countries will put their priorities to the six contenders in Addis Ababa on 23 November.
Health
Ugandan schools take on the taboo around periods
More than 20 schools in the Rwenzori region used drama and essays to talk openly about menstruation. A head teacher says silence leaves schools unprepared.
Health
South Africa's HIV prevention jab has reached 71,000 people. It needs to reach a million a year.
Researchers who studied the rollout of prevention pills say the new twice-yearly injection will not sell itself: people hear about it from people, not from billboards.
Health
Vaccines returned $30 billion to poorer countries last year, Gavi says
The vaccine alliance says 73 million children were immunised in 2025, a record, and that countries paid a record $301 million towards their own vaccines.
Health
A caravan clinic gave 100,000 Zimbabwean teenagers discreet access to contraception. Its funding is going.
A $9 million grant was cancelled with $6 million unspent, and Swedish support ended in August. The government has pledged $2.25 million a year.
Health
Tigray faces failed rains and war at once, with 3.2 million people cut off from food aid
Crops have been scorched across 252,500 hectares and aid warehouses looted since fighting resumed, according to an account from a Tigray health network published by The New Humanitarian.
Health
Kenya's suspected second Ebola case turns out to be malaria
A patient isolated in Wajir tested negative for the virus, the health minister says. Screening and contact tracing continue after the country's first confirmed death on Tuesday.
Health
South Africa's five-year plan against hunger met 11 of its 65 objectives
An evaluation found the plan was never funded and the council meant to lead it never met. The government disputes the finding that political will was lacking.
Health
Medicines are running out in Darfur, WHO warns, with its appeal 23% funded
More than 700,000 displaced people in Tawila face severe shortages, the agency's Sudan chief says. The UN Security Council has meanwhile extended its Sudan sanctions for two months.
Health
Somalia sets up a six-ministry Ebola committee as the outbreak reaches the region
The cabinet approved preparedness measures days after Kenya confirmed its first death. The government has not said whether any case has been detected in Somalia.
Health
Zambia accepts a revised US health deal that Zimbabwe and Ghana have turned down
Lusaka says clauses on sharing patient samples were removed. Harare called the terms lopsided and a breach of sovereignty, and now risks losing HIV funding.
Health
Heart disease and stroke now kill 1.5 million Africans a year, study finds
Non-communicable diseases caused 4.7 million deaths on the continent in 2023. High blood pressure, diet and dirty air account for more than half of them.
Health
Kenya races to trace contacts after its first Ebola death, as the outbreak in DR Congo worsens
A man who fell ill in DR Congo crossed three countries before dying in a Nairobi hospital. No other infection has been confirmed in Kenya, but the case has raised hard questions about border screening.
Health
Street medicine is booming in Central Africa. A UN report says weak health systems are why.
More than 250 tonnes of medical products were seized in five countries in six years. Where a pharmacy is too far or too expensive, the UN finds, illicit sellers fill the gap.
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