14 May 2020 – While Somalia deals with one of the world's biggest public health threats from COVID-19, which has so far claimed 52 lives in the country and infected 1219 people in less than 2 months, the country is also facing floods in the north that have killed 24 people and affected over 700 000 people in 24 districts. The flood has also...

11 May 2020 – As the laboratory-confirmed cases of COVID-19 surge in Somalia, the country has also intensified its operations response to contain the epidemic. The WHO country office in support of this intensified response operations has deployed over 4000 community health care workers, each having to visit at least 5000 households every month...

Mogadishu, 7 May, 2020 – The WHO country office and the Delegation of the European Union (EU) to Somalia have joined hands under a new collaboration in the country to strengthen operational response activities for COVID-19. The new collaboration aims to accelerate support for the frontline work of WHO in combating COVID-19 in a seemingly vast country...

In Somalia, staff and volunteers from the country’s long-running polio programme have been trained to detect COVID-19 cases. Here, a trainee learns how to use a COVID-19 tracking database on her phone.4 May 2020 – “The road to the mountain village was rough. It’s only 50 kilometres, but it took more than 3 hours,” says Dr Fatima Ismail, a...

As the COVID-19 pandemic escalates the WHO country office has helped Somalia rapidly build and scale up the testing capacity for COVID-19 in Somalia. In March 2020, when the country’s first case of COVID-19 was laboratory-confirmed in Somalia, the country had no capacity for testing and diagnosis of COVID-19. WHO sent nasopharyngeal swab from 4...

23 April 2020 – In Somalia's COVID-19 response, being ahead of the curve is the only way to stop transmission and limit spread of the virus in the community. Enhancing active surveillance and expanding its geographic coverage to include both the private and public sector using a syndromic-based approach is the best way to detect cases early. In...

23 April 2020 – The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases continues to rise in Somalia, including associated deaths attributed to coronavirus disease. While the number of cases increase, there is increasing demand on the health system for patient care. When health systems are strained and overwhelmed, especially in fragile and vulnerable settings...

In the absence of testing facilities for COVID-19, the WHO staff are involved in safe packaging and transportation of samples collected across the country to the testing laboratory at KEMRI. So far, over 50 samples from the suspected cases have been collected and tested at the refence laboratory for COVID-19The WHO country office is supporting...

8 December 2019 – The first phase of a nationwide integrated polio and measles vaccination campaign has concluded in Somalia having achieved high coverage. WHO in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Health and UNICEF launched the first phase of the campaign from 24 to 28 November 2019, targeting more than 1.7 million children under the age...

MOGADISHU, 24 November 2019 - Health authorities launched today a campaign to vaccinate 1.7 million children against measles and polio in Benaadir, Galguduud, Hirshabelle, Jubaland and South West State, Somalia. The 5-day campaign, running from 24 to 28 November, will target children under the age of 5 with polio vaccines and children aged 6 to 59...