DREF #Operation: #Ethiopia #Marburg #Outbreak 2025 (MDRET039) (IFRC, Dec. 1 '25)

 

Description of the Event

Date when the trigger was met: 12-11-2025

What happened, where and when?

-- On 14 November 2025, the Federal Ministry of Health (FMOH), in collaboration with the Ethiopian Public Health Institute (EPHI), issued a press release declaring an outbreak of Marburg virus disease in the South Region of Ethiopia. 

-- As of 26 November 2025, 78 laboratory tests have been conducted, of which twelve confirmed cases, including seven confirmed deaths, have been reported, three cases remain probable. 

-- Of the twelve confirmed cases, five are currently alive, three on treatment, and two discharged. 

-- More than 300 contacts have been identified and are under active follow-up. 

-- Given the high fatality potential and rapid transmissibility of Marburg, (MVD) an immediate and coordinated public health response is essential. 

- Early detection, isolation, contact tracing, and community sensitization are critical to prevent further spread by strengthening infection prevention and control (IPC) in health facilities, ensuring the safety of health workers, mobilizing rapid response teams (RRTs), and effective risk communication are key priorities at this stage.

-- An urgent response is warranted due to the potential for rapid local and cross-regional transmission, and significant public health threat associated with hemorrhagic fevers. 

-- Delayed intervention could result in high morbidity and mortality, community panic and overburdening of the health system. 

-- Immediate action will help contain the outbreak source, interrupt transmission chains, and protect both the affected population and health workers while laboratory confirmation and epidemiological investigations continue.

Source: 

Link: https://reliefweb.int/report/ethiopia/dref-operation-ethiopia-marburg-outbreak-2025-mdret039

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#WHO #operations compromised following #attacks on warehouse and #facility sheltering #staff and #families in Deir al Balah, #Gaza

 

WHO condemns in the strongest terms the attacks on a building housing WHO staff in Deir al Balah in Gaza, the mistreatment of those sheltering there, and the destruction of its main warehouse.

Following intensified hostilities in Deir al Balah after the latest evacuation order issued by Israeli military, the WHO staff residence was attacked three times today. 

Staff and their families, including children, were exposed to grave danger and traumatized after airstrikes caused a fire and significant damage. 

Israeli military entered the premises, forcing women and children to evacuate on foot toward Al-Mawasi amid active conflict. 

Male staff and family members were handcuffed, stripped, interrogated on the spot, and screened at gunpoint. 

Two WHO staff and two family members were detained. 

Three were later released, while one staff member remains in detention. 

Thirty-two people, including women and children, were collected and evacuated to the WHO office in a high-risk mission, once access became possible. 

The office itself is close to the evacuation zone and active conflict.

WHO demands continuous protection of its staff and the immediate release of the remaining detained staff member.

The latest evacuation order has affected several WHO premises. As the United Nations’s (UN) lead health agency, WHO’s operational presence in Gaza is now compromised, crippling efforts to sustain a collapsing health system and pushing survival further out of reach for more than two million people. 

Most of WHO’s staff housing is now inaccessible. Last night, due to intensified hostilities, 43 staff and their families were already relocated from several staff residences to the WHO office, under darkness and at significant risk.

WHO’s main warehouse located in Deir al Balah is within the evacuation zone, and was damaged yesterday after an attack caused explosions and fire inside - part of a pattern of systematic destruction of health facilities. It was later looted by desperate crowds.

With the main warehouse nonfunctional and the majority of medical supplies in Gaza depleted, WHO is severely constrained in adequately supporting hospitals, emergency medical teams and health partners, already critically short on medicines, fuel, and equipment. WHO urgently calls on Member States to help ensure a sustained and regular flow of medical supplies into Gaza.

The geographical coordinates of all WHO premises, including offices, warehouses, and staff housing, are shared with the relevant parties. These facilities are the backbone of WHO’s operations in Gaza and must always be protected, regardless of evacuation or displacement orders. Any threat to these premises is a threat to the entire humanitarian health response in Gaza.  

In line with the UN’s decision, WHO will remain in Deir al Balah, deliver and expand its operations.

With 88% of Gaza now under evacuation orders or within Israeli-militarized zones, there is no safe place to go.

WHO is appalled by the dangerous conditions under which humanitarians and health workers are forced to operate. As the security situation and access continue to deteriorate, red lines are repeatedly crossed, and humanitarian operations pushed into an ever-shrinking space to respond. 

WHO calls for the immediate release of the WHO staff member detained today, and the protection of all our staff and its premises. We reiterate our call for the active protection of civilians, health care and its premises and for rapid and unimpeded flow of aid, including food, fuel and health supplies, at scale into and across Gaza. WHO also calls for the unconditional release of hostages. 

Life in Gaza is being relentlessly squeezed, and the chance to prevent loss of lives and reverse immense damage to the health system slips further out of reach each day. A ceasefire is not just necessary, it is overdue. 

Source: World Health Organization, https://www.who.int/news/item/21-07-2025-who-operations-compromised-following-attacks-on-warehouse-and-facility-sheltering-staff-and-families-in-deir-al-balah

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World #Health #Assembly adopts historic #Pandemic #Agreement to make the world more equitable and safer from future pandemics (#WHO)

Agreement’s adoption follows three years of intensive negotiation launched due to gaps and inequities identified in national and global COVID-19 response.

Agreement boosts global collaboration to ensure stronger, more equitable response to future pandemics.

Next steps include negotiations on Pathogen Access and Benefits Sharing system.

Member States of the World Health Organization (WHO) today formally adopted by consensus the world's first Pandemic Agreement. The landmark decision by the 78th World Health Assembly culminates more than three years of intensive negotiations launched by governments in response to the devastating impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, and driven by the goal of making the world safer from – and more equitable in response to – future pandemics.

“The world is safer today thanks to the leadership, collaboration and commitment of our Member States to adopt the historic WHO Pandemic Agreement,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. 

“The Agreement is a victory for public health, science and multilateral action. It will ensure we, collectively, can better protect the world from future pandemic threats. It is also a recognition by the international community that our citizens, societies and economies must not be left vulnerable to again suffer losses like those endured during COVID-19.”  

Governments adopted the WHO Pandemic Agreement today in a plenary session of the World Health Assembly, WHO’s peak decision-making body. The adoption followed yesterday’s approval of the Agreement by vote (124 in favour, 0 objections, 11 abstentions) in Committee by Member State delegations.

“Starting during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, governments from all corners of the world acted with great purpose, dedication and urgency, and in doing so exercising their national sovereignty, to negotiate the historic WHO Pandemic Agreement that has been adopted today,” said Dr Teodoro Herbosa, Secretary of the Philippines Department of Health, and President of this year’s World Health Assembly, who presided over the Agreement’s adoption. 

“Now that the Agreement has been brought to life, we must all act with the same urgency to implement its critical elements, including systems to ensure equitable access to life-saving pandemic-related health products. As COVID was a once-in-a-lifetime emergency, the WHO Pandemic Agreement offers a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to build on lessons learned from that crisis and ensure people worldwide are better protected if a future pandemic emerges.”

The WHO Pandemic Agreement sets out the principles, approaches and tools for better international coordination across a range of areas, in order to strengthen the global health architecture for pandemic prevention, preparedness and response. This includes through the equitable and timely access to vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics.

Regarding national sovereignty, the Agreement states that: 

“Nothing in the WHO Pandemic Agreement shall be interpreted as providing the Secretariat of the World Health Organization, including the Director-General of the World Health Organization, any authority to direct, order, alter or otherwise prescribe the national and/or domestic law, as appropriate, or policies of any Party, or to mandate or otherwise impose any requirements that Parties take specific actions, such as ban or accept travellers, impose vaccination mandates or therapeutic or diagnostic measures or implement lockdowns.”

Notes for editors

The resolution on the WHO Pandemic Agreement adopted by the World Health Assembly sets out steps to prepare for the accord’s implementation. It includes launching a process to draft and negotiate a Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing system (PABS) through an Intergovernmental Working Group (IGWG). The result of this process will be considered at next year’s World Health Assembly.

Once the Assembly adopts the PABS annex, the WHO Pandemic Agreement will then be open for signature and consideration of ratification, including by national legislative bodies. 

After 60 ratifications, the Agreement will enter into force.

In addition, Member States also directed the IGWG to initiate steps to enable setting up of the Coordinating Financial Mechanism for pandemic prevention, preparedness and response, and the Global Supply Chain and Logistics Network (GSCL) to “enhance, facilitate, and work to remove barriers and ensure equitable, timely, rapid, safe, and affordable access to pandemic-related health products for countries in need during public health emergencies of international concern, including pandemic emergencies, and for prevention of such emergencies.”

According to the Agreement, pharmaceutical manufacturers participating in the PABS system will play a key role in equitable and timely access to pandemic-related health products by making available to WHO “rapid access targeting 20% of their real time production of safe, quality and effective vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics for the pathogen causing the pandemic emergency.”  The distribution of these products to countries will be carried out on the basis of public health risk and need, with particular attention to the needs of developing countries.

The WHO Pandemic Agreement is the second international legal agreement negotiated under Article 19 of the WHO Constitution, the first being the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which was adopted in 2003 and entered into force in 2005.

Source: World Health Organization, https://www.who.int/news/item/20-05-2025-world-health-assembly-adopts-historic-pandemic-agreement-to-make-the-world-more-equitable-and-safer-from-future-pandemics

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