Eritrea News

Eritrea celebrated World blood donor day on the 13th of June 2010 under the theme “Let’s Increase the Number of New Blood Donors” adopted from the global theme “New Blood for the World”.

Blood Donors Day was marked in Eritrea for the 6th time this year organized with the active participation of the donors clubs coordinated by the National Blood Transfusion Center (NBTC).

To scale up the national mental health services Ministry of Health has finalized the national mental health strategic plan of action for 2010 - 2014 with the support of WHO Country Office.

The consensus building workshop held from 6 to 8 July 2010 brought together stakeholders from Ministry of Labour and Human Welfare, Ministry of Education, UNICEF, UNFPA, UNAIDS, College of Health Sciences, BIDHO Association (People living with HIV/AIDS) and other partners in health.

Recent estimates of maternal mortality have shown that the WHO African region has made no important progress toward achieving the MDG target. To date 31 countries out of the 46 have a very high mortality ratio ranging from 550 to 100 per 100,000 live births. In Eritrea, there has been a marked reduction in maternal mortality from 998 per 100,000 live births in 1995 (EDHS) to 450 in 2005 (UN estimates).

This year’s theme, “Just 10 steps: The Baby Friendly Way”, emphasizes on the promotion of full practice of all the ten steps by all Maternity Services set out in the WHO/UNICEF joint statement for “Protecting, promoting and supporting breastfeeding: the special role of maternity services.”

The Innocenti Declaration in 1990 called upon the world to fully implement the Ten Steps in all maternities by 1995. Twenty years later, more than 150 countries have Baby-friendly hospitals that have implemented the Ten Steps.

One of the targets of the Millennium Development Goals is to reduce child mortality by two third between 1990 and 2015. According to the 2008 assessment of countdown to 2015, Eritrea is on track to meet this goal, with consistent progress in reducing child deaths with an average annual reduction of around 4% over the last decade.

Still, infant and under5 mortality rates in Eritrea are considered high in reference to the MDG 4 target, which is 49/1000 Live Births by 2015.

To provide Eritrea’s HIV/AIDS stakeholders inputs into the development of the Global Health Sector Strategy for HIV/AIDS 2011-2015, the WHO Country Office in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and UNAIDS conducted a consultation meeting on 7th September 2010.

About 40 participants, including Heads of UN agencies, representatives of embassies, government officials, national associations, federations and societies and Members of the UN HIV/AIDS Joint Team Group took part to this consultation.

To adopt and finalize the five year action plan for strengthening the National Codex Committee in Eritrea Ministry of Agriculture with the WHO support conducted a workshop on September 8, 2010.

In this workshop about 40 participants from key government institutions as well as representatives from WHO and FAO serving on the committee gathered to review the draft plan and provide their inputs for its finalization. 

The Ministry of Health with the support of WHO and World Bank conducted a three day consensus building workshop to finalize a five year strategic plan for Human Resources for Health (HRH) in Eritrea.

The workshop which continued from 15 to 17 September was officially opened by the Honourable Minister of Health, Ms Amina Nurhusien. In her remarks, the Minister emphasised that the HRH strategic plan which will be the outcome of this workshop should be in line with the National Policies in general and that of the Ministry of Health in particular. 

World AIDS Day was nationally commemorated in Eritrea on December 1, 2010 under the theme, “Universal Access and Human Rights,” in the capital city.

In Asmara, the event was marked at the Bahti Meskerem Square in the presence of Zoba Maekel officials, UN heads of agencies, community representatives, students and other invited guests.

The Tenth Eritrean National Book Fair was held from 18 to 27 March 2011 in Expo Compound under the theme “School Libraries: foundation to Reading Culture”. The fair which is an annual public event was officially opened by Mr. Semere Russom, Minister of Education.

The main objective of the book fair was to promote more and more reading habit among the society. Throughout the week visitors have expressed their appreciation of the book fare. Even some requested to have access of WHO materials.