Highlights:
· There was one confirmed case of Ebola this week, which brings the total number of confirmed cases to 3,338. Forécariah, one of the prefectures in which Ebola has been most intractable, is now classified as “inactive” after having gone 21 days without any cases. This leaves Conakry and Dubréka as the two remaining “active” areas. (WHO, Ebola Situation Report, 6 September 2015).
· The European Commission's Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection department (ECHO), the NGO Save the Children and UNICEF launched a photo exhibition called "Beyond Ebola – Helping Children Rebuild their Lives" to show the ECHO’s assistance to Ebola orphans and other children affected by the disease in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. The European Commission has made a donation of €500,000 under its ECHO Children of Peace Initiative to UNICEF Guinea for education support activities including psychosocial support
· UNICEF is supporting a back-to-school campaign in preparation for the new academic year scheduled to start on 5 October 2015. Social mobilizers are sensitizing parents about the importance of education for children.
· The preliminary results of the SMART nutrition survey found that the rate of Global Acute Malnutrition (GAM) in children under the age of five in Guinea is 8 per cent and the rate of Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) is 2 per cent.
· The campaign in Conakry to check that drivers are not transporting corpses or sick people continued for a fifth week, with social mobilizers this week reaching 53,003 people at 12 mini-bus and taxi stations, 10 train stations and 34 harbours.
· UNICEF and partners organized 1,322 plays and recreational sessions, in which 2,073 children (887 girls) who had not previously participated were included. Among the new children there were 158 children who lost one or both parents (79 girls). This brings the total number of children that have received psychosocial support to 114,301.