WHO News

On 16 August 2019, Regional Health Authorities in Andalusia, Spain, reported an outbreak of listeriosis, caused by the bacteria Listeria monocytogenes (L. monocytogenes), associated with the consumption of a chilled roasted pork meat product manufactured in Spain by Magrudis Company Limited and sold under the brand name “La Mechá”. View the full article

Ebola virus disease (EVD) transmission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo continued to ease this past week, with 40 new confirmed cases reported in North Kivu and Ituri provinces; this is the lowest weekly incidence since March 2019. While these signs are promising, it remains too soon to tell if this trend will persist. Emerging hotspots continue to pose challenges in terms of accessibility, insecurity, and violence. Surveillance indicators highlight that public health risks of further spread remain very high. During the past 21 days (from 21 August through 10 September 2019), a total of 157 confirmed cases were reported form 15 health zones (Table 1, Figure 2), w…

The intensity of Ebola virus disease (EVD) transmission in the North Kivu, South Kivu, and Ituri provinces remains substantial, with 57 new cases reported since the last EVD in the Democratic Republic of the Congo Disease Outbreak News Update on 29 August. View the full article

In Nigeria and West Africa, a cVDPV2 outbreak originating from Jigawa state, Nigeria, continues to spread. In Ghana, cVDPV2 was isolated from an acute flaccid paralysis (AFP) case in Ando-Nyamanu, Chereponi district, Northern Region, bordering Togo. The case was a two-year old girl who had experienced onset of paralysis on 27 July 2019. Stool samples were taken on 27 and 28 July 2019, and sent to the National Polio Laboratory at the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research for further laboratory investigations. The sample tested positive for cVDPV2 on 17 August 2019. Sequencing of the sample from the AFP case revealed 25 nucleotide differences compared to the r…

The Ebola virus disease (EVD) outbreak in North Kivu, South Kivu, and Ituri provinces in the Democratic Republic of the Congo continued this week with similar transmission intensity to the previous six weeks, with an average of 77 cases per week (Figure 1). View the full article

From 1 through 31 July 2019, the National IHR Focal Point of Saudi Arabia reported 9 additional laboratory-confirmed cases of Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS-CoV) infection and 4 associated deaths. The cases were reported from Riyadh (5 cases), Najran (3 cases), Al-Qassim (1 case) regions. There were no clusters of cases reported during this time period. The link below provides details of the 9 reported cases : View the full article

The Ebola virus disease (EVD) outbreak in North Kivu and Ituri provinces in the Democratic Republic of the Congo continued this week with similar transmission intensity (Figure 1). View the full article

On 23 June 2019, a vaccine-derived poliovirus type 1 (VDPV1) was isolated from a two -year- old child with acute flaccid paralysis (AFP), with onset of paralysis on 22 May 2019 from Kayin state, Myanmar. Subsequently, on 11 July 2019, a genetically linked VDPV1 was isolated from the same state from a 5-year 6-month-old child with AFP, with date of onset of paralysis on 14 June, and it was classified as circulating VDPV1 (cVDPV1) on 12 July 2019. On 25 July 2019, cVDPV1 was isolated from a third AFP case from the same state, with date of onset of paralysis on 23 May 2019. Subsequently, on 19 August 2019, a fourth case of VDPV1 has been confirmed in a six-year-old child, wi…

The Ebola virus disease (EVD) outbreak in North Kivu and Ituri provinces in the Democratic Republic of the Congo continued this week with similar transmission intensity to recent weeks, with an average of 81 cases per week (range 68 to 91 cases per week) in the past six weeks (Figure 1). View the full article

The Ebola virus disease (EVD) outbreak in North Kivu and Ituri provinces in the Democratic Republic of the Congo continued this week with similar transmission intensity to recent weeks with an average of 86 cases per week (range 80 to 91 cases per week) in the past six weeks (Figure 1). View the full article

The Ebola virus disease (EVD) outbreak in North Kivu and Ituri provinces in the Democratic Republic of the Congo continued this week with similar transmission intensity to recent weeks, with an average of 85 cases per week (range 79 to 91 cases per week) in the past six weeks (Figure 1). View the full article

The summaries below provide a situational update on circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 (cVDPV2) outbreaks in the WHO African and Eastern Mediterranean regions. No wild poliovirus has been detected on the African continent since September 2016. In the Lake Chad Basin (LCB) sub-region, multiple cVDPV2 outbreaks continue to spread. All the countries that comprise the sub-region (Niger, Cameroon, and Nigeria) have reported outbreaks in either human or environmental samples. View the full article

The Ebola virus disease (EVD) outbreak in North Kivu and Ituri provinces in Democratic Republic of the Congo is ongoing amidst a complex crisis, and we continue to observe sustained local transmission and a high number of cases. View the full article

From 1 through 30 June 2019, the National International Health Regulations (IHR) Focal Point of Saudi Arabia reported 7 additional cases of Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS-CoV) infection. These cases were from Al-Qassim (3 cases), Riyadh (2 cases), Madinah (1 death) and Eastern (1 case) regions. One of the newly reported cases is a health care worker, contact of a case included in the Disease outbreak news published on 16 July 2019 (Case no. 14). Two deaths were reported, one (Case no. 5) from the current reporting month, and a second death (Case no. 13) previously described as a case in the Disease outbreak news on 16 July 2019 . The link below provides detail…

On 17 July 2019, the Director-General convened the Emergency Committee under the International Health Regulations (IHR) to review the situation on the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). It was the fourth time the Director-General convened the Committee for this event since the declaration of the outbreak in August 2018 (previous meetings were held in October 2018, April 2019, and June 2019). The Director-General accepted the Emergency Committee’s recommendation that the outbreak constitutes a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC). The decision was based on the recent developments in the outbreak, including the geographical exp…

From 1 through 31 May 2019, the National International Health Regulations (IHR) Focal Point of Saudi Arabia reported 14 additional cases of Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS-CoV) infection, including five deaths. Of the 14 cases reported, four cases were associated with two separate clusters. Cluster 1 involved two cases (case no. 6 and case no. 7) living in the same household in Alkharj, Riyadh, and cluster 2 involved one patient (case no. 9) and one healthcare worker (case no. 11) in Riyadh. The link below provides details of the 14 reported cases: View the full article

The outbreak of Ebola virus disease (EVD) in North Kivu and Ituri provinces, Democratic Republic of the Congo continues this past week with a similar transmission intensity to the previous week. View the full article

The outbreak of Ebola virus disease (EVD) in North Kivu and Ituri provinces, Democratic Republic of the Congo continued with a steady transmission intensity this week. Indicators demonstrated the early signs of transmission easing in intensity in some major hotspots, such as Butembo and Katwa. The current hotspots are the health zones of Beni, Mabalako, and Mandima, with some cases being exported from these hotspot areas into unaffected health zones. There is a slight but notable increase in the number of new cases occurring in areas that previously had lower rates of transmission, such as the Komanda, Lubero, and Rwampara/ Bunia health zones. On 30 June, a case who had t…

On 25 April 2019, the local administration in Larkana district was alerted by media reports of a surge in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) cases among children in Ratodero Taluka, Larkana district, Sindh province, Pakistan. A screening camp was initially established at Taluka’s main hospital. Later, screening was expanded to other health facilities including selected Rural Health Centers (RHCs) and Basic Health Units (BHUs). HIV rapid test kits that were initially used were replaced with pre-qualified WHO test kits. From 25 April through 28 June 2019, a total of 30,192 people have been screened for HIV, of which 876 were found positive. Eighty-two per cent (719/876) o…

The Ebola virus disease (EVD) outbreak in the North Kivu and Ituri provinces continues at a stable pace this week. Although response operations were temporarily interrupted in Beni following two days of insecurity in the surrounding areas, operations have largely resumed. However, in the town of Musienene, violent threats persist against healthcare workers (HCW) and local security forces providing assistance to the response efforts. Furthermore, response activities in Kambau health area, Manguredjipa health zone were also suspended following security incidents. Of growing concern this week, are the current hotspots of Mabalako, particularly the Aloya health area, and Ma…

This week saw a continued, gradual decrease in the number of new Ebola virus disease (EVD) cases from the hotspots of Katwa and Butembo compared to the previous weeks. However, these encouraging signs are offset by a marked increase in case incidence in Mabalako Health Zone, and especially in Aloya Health Area (Figure 1). While the spread of EVD to new geographic areas remains low, in the health zones of Bunia, Lubero, Komanda and Rwampara, recent reintroduction events illustrate the high risks in previously affected areas. Along with the rise in cases in Mabalako, there was also an accompanying increase in healthcare worker (HCW) and nosocomial infections. These findings…

On 11 June 2019, the Ugandan Ministry of Health (MoH) has confirmed a case of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) in Kasese district, Uganda. The patient is a 5-year-old child from the Democratic Republic of the Congo who travelled with his family from Mabalako Health Zone in Democratic Republic of the Congo after attending, on 1 June 2019, the funeral of his grandfather (confirmed EVD case on 2 June 2019). On 10 June 2019, the child and the family entered the country through Bwera border post and sought medical care at Kagando hospital where health workers identified Ebola as a possible cause of illness. The child was transferred to Bwera Ebola Treatment Unit (ETU) for management.…

The Ebola virus disease (EVD) outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) continues to show a decrease in the number of new cases in hotspots such as Katwa, Beni and Kalunguta health zones. However, in other areas such as Mabalako and Butembo, moderate rates of transmission continue. With ongoing EVD transmission within communities in 12 health zones in North Kivu and Ituri provinces, factors such as persistent delays in case detection, approximately a third of cases dying outside of Ebola treatment or transit centres, and high population mobility, pose a high risk of geographical spread both within the DRC and to neighbouring countries. This was highlighted by…

As the Ebola virus disease (EVD) outbreak surpasses the 2000 case mark, indicators over the past two weeks provide early signs of an easing of the transmission intensity. This follows a period of improved security and therefore access to communities, allowing response teams to operate more freely. A total of 88 confirmed cases were reported each week for the past two epidemiological weeks, down from a peak of 126 cases per week observed in April. Declines in the incidence of new cases have been most apparent in hotspots such as Katwa, Mandima and Beni health zones. Concurrently, improvements in the proportion of cases among contacts registered prior to onset (up from 30% …

On 23 May 2019, WHO received notification through the Global Polio Laboratory Network (GPLN) of the detection of circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 (cVDPV2) from an environmental sample collected on 20 April 2019 in a hospital in Northern Cameroon which borders Borno state in Nigeria and Chad. View the full article