The WHO Health Emergencies Programme is currently monitoring 118 events in the region. This week’s main articles cover the following events:
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Togo
Measles in Chad
Ebola virus disease (EVD) in Équateur Province, Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Un Plan humanitaire multisectoriel spécifique à la réponse COVID-19 a été développé en avril 2020 et constitue un Addendum au Plan de réponse humanitaire 2020 (PRH) afin d’intégrer l’impact de la pandémie de COVID-19 sur les besoins humanitaires existants et sur les activités des part...enaires humanitaires en République Démocratique du Congo (RDC).
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Le Plan de réponse humanitaire (PRH) 2020 a été révisé et publié en mai 2020 afin d’intégrer l’impact de l’épidémie de COVID-19 sur les besoins humanitaires existants et sur les activités des partenaires humanitaires.
Le Plan de réponse humanitaire (PRH) 2020 a été révisé et publié en mai 2020 afin d’intégrer l’impact de l’épidémie de COVID-19 sur les besoins humanitaires existants et sur les activités des partenaires humanitaires.
Dans le contexte de l’épidémie de COVID-19, la portée de l...analyse du PRH 2020 a été mise à jour afin d’intégrer les nouveaux besoins et activités liées à la réponse humanitaire au COVID-19 et d’ajuster les priorités humanitaires en prenant en compte l’évolution du contexte opérationnel.
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La République Démocratique du Congo connait une fragilité sociale issue de divers conflits communautaires qui ont déstabilisés le tissu économique du pays sans épargner le secteur éducatif depuis plusieurs années. Les sources de fragilité sont aussi liées à la pauvreté de la population ...et à l’insécurité alimentaire (15,5 millions de personnes en 2019). De plus, le pays fait face à d’autres crises comme les catastrophes naturelles et différentes épidémies y compris le Cholera, la maladie a virus d’Ébola et COVID19.
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Aviation plays an important role in humanitarian operations around the world, especially in countries where overland transport is difficult or impossible due to insecurity, damaged or inadequate infrastructure, and challenging climatic conditions. Aviation allows the transport of humanitarian aid wo...rkers and humanitarian cargo to communities in some of the world’s most inaccessible places.
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This report alerts responders to the importance of language in building trust and effective communication with people facing Ebola and other epidemics.
Ce rapport attire l’attention des intervenants sur le fait que la langue est importante pour établir la confiance avec les personnes touchées par le virus Ebola et d’autres épidémies et pour une communication efficace avec ces dernières.
This report describes findings from a telephone survey with 1,316 people conducted in February 2021. The survey examined how people respond to public health and social measures (PHSMs) to prevent COVID-19. The sample is representative of households with access to a landline or cell phone, but does n...ot include people without access to phones. As phone penetration varies by country, findings should be interpreted with caution.
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Le nouvel afflux de réfugiés de la République Centrafricaine (RCA), souligne le caractère cyclique de la crise humanitaire, avec des afflux qui tendent à se répéter tous les quatre ans et qui remettent profondément en cause la manière de répondre. Le conflit et l'insécurité en RCA contin...uent de provoquer des déplacements forcés importants, tant à l'intérieur de la RCA que vers les pays voisins, surtout concernant la République Démocratique du Congo (RDC).
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Country profile: Democratic Republic of Congo
Rumors emerge when people feel left out of the discussion, when their questions cannot be answered by authorities or their doubts are dismissed by official sources. But also, rumors present an opportunity – to understand the questions, concerns and anxieties communities may have about this pandemi...c.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Internews has followed its rumour-tracking methodology, including social media listening, to identify those rumors that are posing additional risks to the communities, ensuring content is collected from diverse demographic groups.
Internews produces and distributes rumor bulletins through its Rooted in Trust and its H2H (humanitarian-to-humanitarian network) projects. Rooted in Trust has collected close to 6,000 rumors from seven countries in 12 languages, and collects data across seven major social media platforms and a wide range of feedback collection channels. H2H is a collaboration to support responders at every level by analyzing information gaps and addressing them with evidence-based content in relevant languages, formats, and channels.
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To assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on health and HIV expenditure, UNAIDS carried out a modelling study on fiscal space for health and HIV. From a sample of 28 countries, three countries—the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Jamaica, and Lesotho—were selected to capture health and HIV ...expenditure impacts across countries with especially marked differences in burdens of disease (including HIV prevalence), HIV donor dependency, level of economic development, and geographic location. While the three-country sample is too small to permit findings to be generalized to other countries, these analyses are useful for informing UNAIDS’ work to identify some policy positions to minimize the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on the HIV response.
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INTRODUCTION: Health service use among the public can decline during outbreaks and had been predicted among low and middle-income countries during the COVID-19 pandemic. In March 2020, the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) started implementing public health measures across Kin...shasa, including strict lock-down measures in the Gombe health zone.
METHODS: Using monthly time series data from the DRC Health Management Information System (January 2018 to December 2020) and interrupted time series with mixed effects segmented Poisson regression models, we evaluated the impact of the pandemic on the use of essential health services (outpatient visits, maternal health, vaccinations, visits for common infectious diseases and non-communicable diseases) during the first wave of the pandemic in Kinshasa. Analyses were stratified by age, sex, health facility and lockdown policy (i.e, Gombe vs other health zones).
RESULTS: Health service use dropped rapidly following the start of the pandemic and ranged from 16% for visits for hypertension to 39% for visits for diabetes. However, reductions were highly concentrated in Gombe (81% decline in outpatient visits) relative to other health zones. When the lock-down was lifted, total visits and visits for infectious diseases and non-communicable diseases increased approximately twofold. Hospitals were more affected than health centres. Overall, the use of maternal health services and vaccinations was not significantly affected.
CONCLUSION: The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in important reductions in health service utilizsation in Kinshasa, particularly Gombe. Lifting of lock-down led to a rebound in the level of health service use but it remained lower than pre-pandemic levels.
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