{"id":170785,"date":"2024-04-17T04:37:00","date_gmt":"2024-04-17T02:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/southern-africa\/angola\/from-crisis-to-collaboration-reducing-meningitis-mortality-in-huambo-province-angola\/"},"modified":"2024-04-17T04:37:01","modified_gmt":"2024-04-17T02:37:01","slug":"from-crisis-to-collaboration-reducing-meningitis-mortality-in-huambo-province-angola","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/southern-africa\/angola\/from-crisis-to-collaboration-reducing-meningitis-mortality-in-huambo-province-angola\/","title":{"rendered":"From crisis to collaboration: Reducing meningitis mortality in Huambo province, Angola"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>
Download logo<\/a>
\"\"<\/p>\n

It\u2019s early morning, but Soba Ar\u00e3o Moma, a traditional leader in Benfica neighbourhood in Huambo province, Angola, is already interacting with residents and handing out leaflets. His mission is clear: to ensure everyone is fully informed about the meningitis outbreak affecting Angola\u2019s Huambo province and that no sick children are at home unattended when they should be in hospital.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Moma was part of a critical collaboration by the World Health Organization (WHO), Angola\u2019s Health Ministry, and the European Union to halt an alarming surge in meningitis cases in the province last year, reduce mortality rates, and boost healthcare\u00a0capacity.<\/p>\n

Between January and December 2023, Angola recorded a significant increase in suspected cases of meningitis, with\u00a068,169\u00a0cases and 169 deaths. The high case fatality rate of 40% among the 336 cases reported in Huambo province means that it has accounted for almost 80% of deaths countrywide.<\/p>\n

In general, Huambo province has been the focus of intervention to control a possible outbreak in the country since between January and December 2023, Angola recorded a significant increase in suspected cases of meningitis, with 68,169 cases and 169 deaths, of which 336 cases were reported in Huambo province, with a fatality rate of over 40%. This mortality rate is relatively high when compared to the average number of deaths recorded in the countries considered part of the meningitis belt in the WHO African region, of which Angola is not part.<\/p>\n

Between January and May 2023, the province recorded 103 meningitis cases, resulting in 42 deaths, with a concerning 41% fatality rate. Medication shortages, healthcare personnel, and health facility understaffing exacerbated Huambo province’s meningitis outbreak. To ensure an effective response and safeguard high-risk populations, a 20-day joint response mission to Huambo aimed to enhance the functionality of local health systems, improve infrastructure and medication availability, and bolster human resources.<\/p>\n

Critical outcomes of joint efforts included training 37 healthcare technicians in risk communication and community engagement, training 30 journalists in how to communicate for meningitis prevention and response, engaging 595 community leaders, and training 1548 social mobilisers and community leaders like Moma to disseminate critical messages broadly.<\/p>\n

“We never tired of walking the streets, passionate about conveying the crucial message to everyone that if they experienced symptoms of meningitis, they should seek immediate assistance at their nearest health facility,\u201d recalls Moma.<\/p>\n

The experts supported local meningitis education initiatives, identified high-risk groups, and advocated with local leaders to disseminate critical messages while conducting assessments to rapidly investigate the social factors impacting meningitis prevention.<\/p>\n

Provincial health director Lucas Yamba says, \u201cWe have been able to count on the support of the Directorate of Public Health in this regard, with the excellent partnership of WHO.\u201d<\/p>\n

Through collaborative efforts involving the community, churches and traditional authorities, information about meningitis prevention and treatment was widely disseminated in healthcare facilities and communities.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe gave talks to churches on Saturdays and Sundays, while here [at the health centre] in each of the service areas, our users also received information about meningitis,\u201d said Martins Canuela, a technician at the Benfica Baixo health facility located in\u00a0Moma\u2019s neighbourhood.<\/p>\n

According to Yamba, because of the push to bring the outbreak under control, mortality rates from meningitis in the last months of 2023 had decreased from 53% to 35%.<\/p>\n

While\u00a0significant strides had been made to address the meningitis crisis in Huambo, including increased awareness and reduced mortality rates, ongoing support was crucial to sustain these achievements, says\u00a0Dr Yoti Zabulon, WHO Acting Representative in Angola.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy continuing to work together and leverage partnerships, we can ensure that all communities have access to quality health care services and can effectively manage preventable diseases like meningitis,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of World Health Organization (WHO) – Angola.<\/i><\/p>\n

Source<\/a>
\n
South Africa Today Africa \u2013 Southern Africa Angola<\/a> News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Download logo It\u2019s early morning, but Soba Ar\u00e3o Moma, a traditional leader in Benfica neighbourhood in Huambo province, Angola, is already interacting with residents and handing out leaflets. His mission is clear: to ensure everyone is fully informed about the meningitis outbreak affecting Angola\u2019s Huambo province and that no sick children are at home unattended […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":170786,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.africa-newsroom.com\/files\/large\/05ee228073a6cd2","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4262],"tags":[258,256,3941,4263,7289,3723,9779,1143,12678,257,11048,8844,254],"class_list":["post-170785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-angola","tag-africa","tag-africa-news","tag-angola","tag-angola-news","tag-collaboration","tag-crisis","tag-huambo","tag-meningitis","tag-mortality","tag-news","tag-province","tag-reducing","tag-south-africa-today"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.africa-newsroom.com\/files\/large\/05ee228073a6cd2","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170785\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/170786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}