Author: Mahmud M-Nurudeen

Guinea-Bissau has been selected as the pilot country for implementing the ECOWAS Regional Community Health Policy, as the West African Health Organisation (WAHO) begins high-level engagements with government authorities in Bissau. WAHO Director General Dr Melchior Athanase Joël C. Aïssi began a series of meetings with Guinea-Bissau’s Transitional Government on Tuesday, 18 August 2026, seeking to build political and institutional support for putting the regional policy into practice. The meetings brought community health beyond the health sector, with WAHO also engaging the country’s Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development. Dr Aïssi first met the Minister of Public Health, Commodore Dr…

Patients in Benin, The Gambia and Togo will have new centres where they can report complaints and concerns about the healthcare they receive. The West African Health Organisation (WAHO) has launched projects to establish Health Service User Support Centres in the three countries, in an effort to improve the quality and safety of healthcare. The centres are expected to give patients a place to raise concerns, receive guidance and seek help when they face difficulties during their healthcare journey. But the initiative goes beyond handling individual complaints. The centres will also provide opportunities for dialogue and mediation. Information collected from…

Research presented at a major West African Lassa fever conference is being turned into scientific papers as health experts seek to strengthen the evidence available to prevent and control the disease. The West African Health Organisation (WAHO), in collaboration with the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), its partners and experts from across the region, is holding a workshop in Abuja, Nigeria, to finalise scientific supplements from the 2025 ECOWAS International Lassa Fever Conference. The workshop, which runs from 17 to 21 August 2026, brings together lead authors, mentors and the Editor-in-Chief involved in the publication process. The authors are…

Guinea-Bissau has received laboratory equipment worth more than €1.5 million to strengthen its ability to detect and confirm diseases and respond to public health threats. The equipment, valued at €1,511,499.77, was handed over to the Government of Guinea-Bissau by the West African Health Organisation (WAHO) on 19 August 2026. The support is for the country’s National Public Health Laboratory (LNSP), where the official handover ceremony took place. WAHO Director General Dr Melchior Athanase Joël C. Aïssi handed over the equipment to Guinea-Bissau’s Minister of Public Health, Commodore Dr Quinhin Nantote. The ceremony was witnessed by ECOWAS Resident Representative in Guinea-Bissau…

About 19 in every 20 health care facilities in Nigeria fall short of the basic standard for managing medical waste, according to a new WHO/UNICEF assessment. The finding raises concerns over how used needles, infectious materials and other waste generated during medical care are handled in Africa’s most populous country. Only 5% of Nigerian health care facilities met the basic health-care waste-management standard in 2025, the report found. About 76% had limited services, while 20% had no waste-management service. The findings are contained in the WHO/UNICEF report, Progress on Water, Sanitation, Hygiene, Environmental Cleaning and Waste Management in Health Care…

Stakeholders from government, business, philanthropy and development finance are set to converge in Lagos on 8 September 2026 for a high-level discussion on unlocking new investment opportunities in Africa’s forest sector. The African Forest Forum (AFF), in collaboration with the Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) Champions for Africa Initiative, is organising the roundtable to examine how more capital can be mobilised to protect, restore and sustainably manage the continent’s forests. The gathering is expected to attract senior government officials, corporate executives, philanthropists, development finance institutions, impact investors and other strategic partners. Discussions will focus on financing sustainable forest management, landscape restoration,…

The fight against malaria in Nigeria is becoming more targeted, with health authorities increasingly using information from individual states and local government areas to decide where interventions are most needed. The shift is based on subnational tailoring (SNT), an approach that recognises that malaria does not affect all parts of Nigeria in the same way. Research by Nigeria Health Watch shows that the approach is helping to shape decisions on malaria interventions, planning and funding. Nigeria began using SNT in 2019, building on the World Health Organisation’s High Burden to High Impact initiative. Instead of relying mainly on national averages,…

The possible extinction of one of West Africa’s rarest monkeys should serve as a wake-up call for governments and communities to protect nature before more species and the ecosystems people depend on are lost, a leading Ghanaian biodiversity scientist has warned. Pro Vice-Chancellor of the University of Environment and Sustainable Development (UESD), Professor Edward Wiafe Debrah, said the disappearance of Miss Waldron’s red colobus monkey, once found in the forests of Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire and other West African countries, reflects the growing pressure on biodiversity across the region. Speaking during a virtual media engagement organised by the West African Journalists…

A Ghanaian public university has launched two peer-reviewed academic journals aimed at strengthening African research, increasing access to locally generated knowledge and creating new publishing opportunities for scholars across the continent. The University of Skills Training and Entrepreneurial Development (USTED), formerly the Akenten Appiah-Menka University of Skills Training and Entrepreneurial Development (AAMUSTED), released the maiden editions of the Journal of Applied Social Sciences and Entrepreneurship Education (JASSEE) and the Journal of Technology Education and Applied Sciences (JTEAS). The launch marks the university’s formal entry into academic publishing. The two online, peer-reviewed journals are open access, allowing researchers, students and policymakers…

Around the world, billions of dollars are invested in academic research each year, yet much of it remains locked behind subscription journals and technical language that few people outside academia can understand. Researchers in Kumasi, Ghana are now being encouraged to change that by communicating their findings in ways that inform the public, influence policy and improve lives. That was the message at the University of Skills Training and Entrepreneurial Development (USTED), where researchers, lecturers and university administrators took part in practical training designed to help transform academic studies into compelling stories for print, radio, television and digital media. Speaking…