• WHO welcomed the announcement that the Government of Japan is awarding the first Hideyo Noguchi Africa Prize for service to global public health. The recipients are Brian Greenwood, Professor of Clinical Tropical Medicine at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and an innovator in malaria research; and Miriam K Were, an AIDS specialist doing community-based work in East Africa. Each will receive 100 million yen (about US$ 1 million) at the awards ceremony on 28 May.

• WHO's Regional Office for Africa was scheduled to hold a major conference on primary health care in collaboration with United Nations agencies, the World Bank, the African Development Bank and other partners. The 28–30 April conference, hosted by the government of Burkina Faso in Ouagadougou, marks the 30th anniversary of the Declaration of Alma-Ata on primary health care. Health service managers, researchers and representatives of health ministries, training institutions, nongovernmental organizations and communities were expected to attend.

• World Health Day 2008 on 7 April marked the 60th anniversary of the World Health Organization. WHO used this occasion to raise awareness about the need to protect health from the adverse effects of climate change. Among the many initiatives to mark the event worldwide, WHO Director-General Margaret Chan launched a new report, Protecting health from change (http://www.who.int/world-health-day/toolkit/report_web.pdf) and WHO's Office for the European Region published a document entitled Protecting health in Europe from climate change (http://www.euro.who.int/Document/GCH/Protecting_health.pdf)

• A week-long campaign to vaccinate 5.7 million people against yellow fever across the southern half of Mali began on 11 April and, for the first time, the campaign relied partly on vaccines provided by a developing country. Half the vaccine needed was supplied by Bio Manguinhos of Brazil.

For more about these and other WHO news items please see: http://www.who.int/mediacentre