African News
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has issued a global health alert over a fast-moving outbreak of chikungunya, a mosquito-borne viral disease, that is sweeping across the Indian Ocean islands and making inroads into mainland Africa and South East Asia. Speaking at a media briefing in Geneva on Tuesday, Dr Diana Rojas Alvarez, WHO’s lead on…
On 17 July Boukari Ouba, Vice President of the ABJ, and Luc Pagbelguem, a journalist with the independent TV station BF1, were also released. All four journalists have now been reunited with their families. The IFJ and the FAJ had been campaigning for the release of these journalists since their abduction. IFJ General Secretary Anthony…
Three Southern African countries now have Event-Based Surveillance (EBS) Guidelines–a critical tool for detecting and responding to emerging health risks. Event-based surveillance systems collect and analyse information from diverse sources, including communities, the media, and healthcare workers, to detect unusual health events in real time. They complement traditional indicator-based surveillance and are designed to support…
A year on, the ongoing mpox outbreak now affects 26 countries across Africa, up from seven initially. Containing the outbreak remains a challenge, complicated by the disease’s four clades and several sub-strains, the latest of which was only identified earlier this year. For example, Clade I is typically associated with higher mortality rates and more…
The Africa Centre for Disease Control (Africa CDC) is set to kick off action towards strengthening and harmonising the framework of policies, procedures, and practices that ensure healthcare data is managed, protected, and used responsibly throughout its lifecycle — health data governance — across the continent. The landmark commitment on health data governance was made…
Results from a newly published study highlight the growing spread of drug resistance across 14 African countries, underscoring the urgent need to strengthen laboratory testing, data systems, and health planning to tackle hard-to-treat infections. The study, known as the Mapping Antimicrobial Resistance and Antimicrobial Use Partnership (MAAP), is the largest of its kind ever conducted…
Efforts to strategically leverage health diplomacy to foster cooperation, strengthen partnerships, and promote stability across nations gained momentum when Africa CDC’s Eastern Africa Regional Coordinating Centre (Eastern Africa RCC) formally presented its credentials to the Government of Kenya, establishing its official presence and authority in the country. Dr. Mazyanga Lucy Mazaba, Regional Director of the…
The President/Chief Executive, Dangote Industries Limited, Aliko Dangote, has stated that Africa loses $90 billion annually to importation of substandard petrol fuel due to lack of refineries in the continent. Speaking during the ongoing West African Refined Fuel Conference held in Abuja, Dangote revealed that, due to the continent’s limited domestic refining capacity, Africa imports…
ADDIS ABABA — Africa must implement structural reforms, expanding domestic resource mobilization, fostering regional value chains, and cutting raw commodity exports, as foreign aid is unsustainable for meeting growing development needs, UNECA emphasized. A high-level session, held in New York on July 21, 2025, on the margins of the 2025 UN High-level Political Forum on…
The politically neutral Conseil de l’Entente could revive urgently needed security partnerships among Sahel and coastal states. Security and economic cooperation in West Africa was dealt a blow by the withdrawal of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in January. The three countries are governed by coup…
