WHO News

On 13 January 2020, the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH), Thailand reported the first imported case of lab-confirmed novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) from Wuhan, Hubei Province, China. The case is a 61-year-old Chinese woman living in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China. On 5 January 2020, she developed fever with chills, sore throat and headache. On 8 January 2020, she took a direct flight to Thailand from Wuhan City together with five family members in a tour group of 16 people. The traveler with febrile illness was detected on the same day by thermal surveillance at Suvarnabhumi Airport (BKK), Thailand, and was hospitalized the same day. After temperature check and initia…

On 13 January 2020, the Thailand’s Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) reported the first imported case of lab-confirmed novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) from Wuhan, Hubei Province, China. The case is a 61-year-old Chinese woman living in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China. On 5 January 2020, she developed fever with chills, sore throat and headache. On 8 January 2020, she took a direct flight to Thailand from Wuhan City together with five family members in a tour group of 16 people. The traveler with febrile illness was detected on the same day by thermal surveillance at Suvarnabhumi Airport (BKK), Thailand, and was hospitalized the same day. After temperature check and init…

On 11 and 12 January 2020, WHO received further detailed information from the National Health Commission about the outbreak. WHO is reassured of the quality of the ongoing investigations and the response measures implemented in Wuhan, and the commitment to share information regularly. View the full article

From 1 January through 19 December 2019, a total of 124 laboratory confirmed cases of measles, including two deaths, were reported in the Gaza Strip (case fatality ratio=1.6%). Of the confirmed cases, forty-nine cases (40%) were hospitalized, 12 were among health care workers, and seventy-five (60%) were males. Gaza Strip has an estimated population of 1.99 million (Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics-2019). In addition, of the confirmed cases, 57 cases (46%) were un-vaccinated, of which 28 (23%) were among infants between 6 months to one year old, and 29 (23%) among age groups higher than 30 years old. Between 2009 and 2018, the median administrative immunization …

Twelve new confirmed cases were reported from 1 to 7 January in the ongoing Ebola virus disease (EVD) outbreak in North Kivu and Ituri Provinces. View the full article

On 29 December 2019, the National IHR Focal Point of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) reported one laboratory-confirmed case of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) to WHO. The case is a 74-year-old male national who owns a camel farm located in Al Ain City, Abu Dhabi region in UAE where he is living. He developed fever, cough and sore throat on 8 December 2019 and was admitted to hospital on 10 December, then transferred to ICU on 16 December. A nasopharyngeal aspirate was collected and tested positive for MERS-CoV by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) (UpE and Orf1a genes) on 16 December by the Shiekh Khalifa Medical Center labor…

On 31 December 2019, the WHO China Country Office was informed of cases of pneumonia of unknown etiology (unknown cause) detected in Wuhan City, Hubei Province of China. As of 3 January 2020, a total of 44 patients with pneumonia of unknown etiology have been reported to WHO by the national authorities in China. Of the 44 cases reported, 11 are severely ill, while the remaining 33 patients are in stable condition. According to media reports, the concerned market in Wuhan was closed on 1 January 2020 for environmental sanitation and disinfection. The causal agent has not yet been identified or confirmed. On 1 January 2020, WHO requested further information from national…

Since the last disease outbreak news published on 19 December 2019, 29 new confirmed cases were reported from 18 to 31 December in the ongoing Ebola virus disease (EVD) outbreak in North Kivu province. The confirmed cases in this week were reported from eight health areas in four health zones: Mabalako (62%, n=18), Butembo (14%, n=4), Kalunguta (17%, n=5), and Katwa (7%, n=2). Three of the four cases reported in Butembo in the past fourteen days are linked to a transmission chain of more than 50 people that originated in Aloya Health Area, Mabalako Health Zone. One individual classified as a relapse case of EVD, infected several other individuals within the family and thr…

From 3 November through 8 December 2019, three laboratory confirmed cases of yellow fever including two deaths (case fatality rate = 67%) were detected through the national surveillance system in Mali. The first case-patient was a 15-year-old girl from a village in Kati district, Koulikoro region, Mali. The second and third case were in 17 and 25-year-old men, nationals from Cote d'Ivoire, living in the district of Bouguimi, Sikasso region, Mali. All three cases tested positive for yellow fever by Immunoglobulin M (IgM) and reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) on 3 December 2019 at Institute Pasteur Dakar (IPD). The first case was not vaccinated agains…

On 5 December 2019, the National IHR Focal Point for Qatar reported three laboratory-confirmed cases of Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS-CoV) infection to WHO. The first case-patient (case #1) is a 67-year-old female from Doha, Qatar. She developed fever, cough, shortness of breath and headache on 23 November 2019, and presented to a hospital on 25 November. On 27 November, she went to the same hospital for follow up. However, on 28 November, her condition worsened and she was admitted to the hospital. A nasopharyngeal swab was collected on 28 November and tested positive for MERS-CoV by reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) on 29 November. …

Eleven new confirmed cases were reported from 11 to 17 December in the ongoing Ebola virus disease (EVD) outbreak in North Kivu and Ituri provinces. View the full article

From 1 through 30 November 2019, the National IHR Focal Point of Saudi Arabia reported 10 additional cases of Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS-CoV) infection and one associated deaths. The cases were reported from Riyadh (4), Madinah (2), Al-Qassim (1), Assir (1), Taif (1), and Makkah (1) regions. The link below provides details of the 10 reported cases: View the full article

Nigeria is responding to successive yellow fever outbreaks, with nearly a three-fold increase in number of confirmed cases in 2019 compared to 2018, suggesting intensification of yellow fever virus transmission. Additionally, there have been cases reported in parts of the country that have confirmed cases for the first time since the outbreak started in September 2017. From 1 January through 10 December 2019, a total of 4,189 suspected yellow fever cases were reported from 604 of 774 Local Government Area (LGAs) across all the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory in Nigeria. Of the total 3,547 samples taken, 207 tested positive for yellow fever by Immunoglobulin …

A resurgence of measles cases has been seen in all WHO Regions since 2017. In the Asia Pacific Region, outbreaks of measles have been reported from countries where measles has previously been eliminated (including Australia, Cambodia, Japan, New Zealand, Republic of Korea) and in endemic countries with high incidence rates (including Lao PDR, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Viet Nam). View the full article

On 1 May 2019, in response to increasing numbers of dengue fever cases in Pakistan and India, health authorities in Afghanistan heightened monitoring for the disease. As part of this increased vigilance, the Central Public Health Laboratory (CPHL) in Kabul began to broaden its investigation for possible cases of the disease, such as reviewing samples that tested negative for Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF) to see if they were positive for dengue. The laboratory performed differential diagnosis and tests on 40 samples that had tested negative for Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF). Between 1 October to 4 December 2019, 14 out of the 40 samples tested positiv…

Twenty-seven new confirmed cases were reported from 4 to 10 December in the ongoing Ebola virus disease (EVD) outbreak in North Kivu and Ituri provinces. View the full article

From 1 through 31 October 2019, the National IHR Focal Point of Saudi Arabia reported 15 additional cases of Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS-CoV) infection and six associated deaths. The cases were reported from Assir (5 cases), Al-Qassim (3 cases), Riyadh (6 cases), and Taif (1 case) regions. Of the 15 cases reported, four were linked to two separate clusters. Cluster 1 involved a patient (case #1) and a health care worker (case #5) in Assir region. Cluster 2 involved a patient (case #12) and a health care worker (case #15) in Riyadh region. The link below provides details of the 15 reported cases: View the full article

Nine new confirmed cases were reported from 27 November to 3 December in the ongoing Ebola virus disease (EVD) outbreak in North Kivu and Ituri provinces. The confirmed cases in this week were reported from Mandima (56%, n=5) and Mabalako (44%, n=4) Health Zones. In the past two weeks, violence, widespread civil unrest, and targeted attacks have severely disrupted the Ebola response and restricted access to affected communities in multiple locations. As a result, several key activities of the response experienced diminished performance, including the volume of reported and investigated alerts and the number of contacts registered and followed (Figure 1, Figure 2). The v…

Outbreaks of circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 (cVDPV2) have been reported in several countries in West Africa, central Africa and Horn of Africa (for more information, please see the disease outbreak news published on 31 July 2019). This report provides a situational update on current cVDPV2 outbreaks in newly affected countries in Africa. No wild poliovirus has been detected on the continent since September 2016. In West Africa and the Lake Chad sub-region, a cVDPV2 outbreak originating from Jigawa state, Nigeria, continues to spread. Following detection of this outbreak in Cameroon, Ghana, Benin and the Republic of Niger earlier this year and in 2018, th…

On 6 November 2019, the Spanish authorities reported a likely sexual transmission of dengue between two men who have sex with men (MSM) in the municipality of Madrid in central Spain. View the full article

Sierra Leone health officials, supported by WHO, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other partners, are responding to an outbreak of Lassa fever. On 20 November 2019, WHO was informed by The Netherlands’ International Health Regulations (IHR) National Focal Point of one imported case of Lassa fever from Sierra Leone. The patient was a male doctor, a Dutch national who worked in a rural Masanga hospital in Tonkolili district, Northern province in Sierra Leone. View the full article

Six new confirmed cases were reported between 20 to 26 November in the ongoing Ebola virus disease (EVD) outbreak in North Kivu and Ituri provinces. View the full article

Through national disease surveillance, an outbreak of circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type-2 (cVDPV2) has been confirmed in Pakistan in 2019. Between 7 July and 3 November 2019, 11 children have been paralysed from cVDPV2 in Pakistan – four in Diamir district, Gilgit-Baltistan province, three in Kohistan, two in Torghar and one in Charsadda, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, and one in Metropolitan Corporation Islamabad. The median age for these cases was 22 months ranging from 8 to 66 months . The virus was also isolated in stool samples from two contacts of one patient from Diamir, one contact of one patient from Torghar, as well as from 16 healthy children f…

Many countries around the world are experiencing measles outbreaks. As of 5 November 2019, there have been 413,308 confirmed cases reported to WHO through official monthly reporting by 187 Member States in 2019. Data Source: IVB Database - This is surveillance data, hence for the last month(s), the data may be incomplete. View the full article

On 10 October 2019, the Sudan International Health Regulations (IHR) National Focal Point (NFP) notified WHO of 99 suspected cases of dengue fever in Kassala State. The first reported case presented to the health facilities on 8 August 2019 with symptoms including high-grade fever, headache, and joint pain, with or without vomiting. From 8 August through 4 November 2019, a total of 1,197 suspected cases of dengue fever including five deaths have been reported from seven states: Kassala (1,111 cases; 3 deaths), West Darfur (43 cases; 1 death), North Darfur (29 cases; 1 death), Red Sea (9 cases; 0 deaths), South Darfur (3 cases; 0 deaths), Gadarif (1 case; 0 deaths) and …