Brussels, Belgium, 06/02 - A group of donors to Africa`s female genital mutilation (FGM) control programmes has held a forum in the European Parliament to evaluate results obtained against the harmful traditional practice that affects the health of the mother and child.

Initiated by the NGO `No Peace Without Justice` (NPWJ), whose founder Mrs Emma Bonino is a member of the European parliament, the conference heard different speakers from the World Bank, World Health Organisation (WHO), UN Children`s Fund (UNICEF) and other international organisations.

In a post-conference interview with PANA, Dr Doyin Oluwole, director of family and reproductive health at WHO/Africa regional office, said the UN agency had programmes in about 27 African countries dealing with the fight against female genital mutilation.

She said the involvement of governments, grassroots groups and communities has led to a relative drop in the practice among girls whose mothers have themselves been circumcised.

But, she insisted, the intervention must be pursued until "no single girl undergoes this practice any more," noting that it constituted a violation of fundamental human rights.

About 6,000 girls are circumcised every day in Africa, the WHO official said.

She spoke of a shift in countries like Guinea and Nigeria where parents are practising the female circumcision in hospitals, and disclosed that WHO had launched an information programme to sensitise nurses and doctors against such operations, notwithstanding that they take place under the best hygienic and medical conditions.

Oluwole explained that WHO had produced books in English, which are being distributed in Anglophone African countries, on the dangers of FGM, noting that the publications are being translated into French and African local languages to reach a larger audience across the continent.

The WHO official said progress had been made in countering FGM, "but the struggle must continue even if there is only one girl left who risks circumcision."

On the Marburg virus outbreak in Angola, Dr Oluwole said the epidemic was now under control and on the decline.

She said WHO has mobilised medical teams from Geneva (Switzerland), Brazzaville (Congo), Luanda (Angola), and other countries to assist in curbing the epidemic.