The greater Horn of Africa is experiencing the worst food insecurity seen in decades. More than 37 million people are estimated to be in Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC)1 phase 3 or above and approximately seven million children under
the age of five are acutely malnourished in the region. WHO is coordinating with partners to ramp up its response to avert the worst effects and give people access to the health services they need in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan,
Sudan and Uganda.
In April 2021, the WHO Regional Emergency Medical Teams (EMT) Training Center was officially inaugurated in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to help build national capacities in the region. Since then, over 100 people have been trained at the center, including
EMT members and Ministry of Health staff supporting EMT coordination and response from different parts of the country.
Just over a year later, in June 2022, 17 EMT members including doctors, nurses and nutritionists were deployed for the first time, to provide clinical care to people affected by drought in Gode, Somalia. WHO supported their deployment, alongside the Ministry
of Health and the Somali Regional Health Bureau, which included nutritional screening for 211 children at internally displaced persons (IDP) sites and Gode Hospital. About 100 children with severe acute malnutrition were also admitted to the hospital’s
stabilization center. As a result of the team’s efforts, 90 children *improved and were discharged during their deployment period.
The 17 EMT members deployed to Gode, form part of a larger pool of 70 volunteers who are on Ethiopia’s EMT roster, ready for deployment, following their rigorous training. The regional trainings form part of a global EMT initiative whose aim is
to strengthen national surge response capacities in the immediate aftermath of a disaster, outbreak or other health emergency.
“We’re proud of our team’s well-coordinated engagement for a successful response. We request our partners’ long term sustainable support for the continued impact of the team. We have set the foundation for the future”, said
Degisew Dersso, EMT Coordinator.
The drought is poised to become a famine. It affects seven countries in the greater Horn of Africa: Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Uganda. Six of these countries, including Somalia, are witnessing measles outbreaks.
An estimated 1.5 million children aged under five years face acute malnutrition, with more than 380,000 likely to experience severe malnourishment which means. Many of these children have continued to suffer, following previous droughts like that in 2021.
“As long as Somalia and neighboring countries have pockets of under-immunized children and low routine immunization rates, preventable diseases like measles will keep reversing gains made so far and affecting children,” said Dr Mamunur Rahman
Malik, WHO Representative to Somalia.
To prevent measles from spreading, WHO and UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Fund) worked together to provide crucial support to the Puntland and Galmudug Ministries of Health to conduct a measles vaccination campaign over 10 days in July 2022.
The campaign covered children in 15 districts in Puntland and two districts in Galmudug. As part of the intervention, 466 outreach teams vaccinated 94% of their target, 459,478 children aged six to 59 months.
Dr Mamunur Rahman Malik is determined to go even further in 2023: “WHO-UNICEF estimates state that only around 46% of children in Somalia have received their first dose of measles in the last decade. We all need to redouble our efforts to reach
the other half of the population of children, especially as COVID-19 has already contributed to childhood immunization sliding backwards in Somalia.”
