WHO AFRO Outbreaks and Other Emergencies, Week 27: 1 - 7 July 2017 (Data as reported by 17:00, 7 July 2017)

Overview

This weekly bulletin focuses on selected acute public health emergencies occurring in the WHO African Region. WHO AFRO is currently monitoring 39 events: three Grade 3, six Grade 2, six Grade 1, and 24 ungraded events.

This week’s edition covers key ongoing events in the region, including the grade 3 humanitarian crises in South Sudan and Ethiopia and outbreaks of hepatitis E in the Lake Chad Basin (Chad, Niger and Nigeria), malaria in Burundi, dengue fever in Côte d’Ivoire, and visceral leishmaniasis in Kenya.

For each of these events, a brief description followed by public health measures implemented and an interpretation of the situation is provided.

A table is provided at the end of the bulletin with information on all public health events currently being monitored in the region.

Major challenges to be addressed include:

• The persistent and increasing incidence of malaria in Burundi, taking place within the context of humanitarian crisis, needs to be tackled more aggressively.

• The number of countries in the African Region reporting dengue fever has been steadily growing. This could be an early indication of increasing endemicity of the disease in the region.

Countries in the region need to strengthen their capacity for detection, confirmation and effective response to the disease.