Society catergory

Johannesburg, South Africa | AFP |  An ambulance carrying South Africa’s first democratically elected president Nelson Mandela caught fire as it was rushing him to hospital, his doctor revealed in a book published on Monday. The incident is one of several bizarre episodes contained in the book chronicling Mandela’s final …

Experts demand more money for Non-communicable Diseases Kampala, Uganda | FLAVIA NASSAKA | Demands by some experts for more investment in medicines, facilities, and training of medical staff to handle rising cases of diseases like cancer, diabetes, and heart diseases that are technically referred to as Non-Communicable Disease (NCDs) has …

Delays and shattered hopes: Uganda still waiting for oil riches   BULIISA, Uganda | AFP | It was the promise of oil — billions of barrels of black gold, discovered locked beneath Lake Albert — and the riches to follow that brought electricity to Buliisa. Roads, piped water, and other …

Washington, United States | AFP |  US authorities announced charges Thursday against more than 400 people, many of them doctors and nurses, over health care scams worth $1.3 billion including the wrongful prescription and distribution of opioids. The Justice Department called it the largest ever enforcement action of its kind …

Melbourne, Australia | AFP | At a secret location in Australia’s southeast, Peter Crook delicately tends to a two-month-old cannabis cutting. Barely knee high, it is one of about 50 government-sanctioned “mother plants” to be cloned for future generations of crops for the country’s fledgling medicinal marijuana industry. “I think we’ll …

One step closer to a gonorrhoea vaccine? Paris, France | AFP |  A discontinued vaccine against a bacteria that causes brain inflammation also shielded people against gonorrhoea, the first drug ever to offer such protection against the sexually transmitted disease, researchers said Tuesday. Using a condom or abstaining from sex …

Have you turned to a mobile app to manage or improve your health? |James Bullen| Apps that claim to treat everything from pimples to depression appeal to the anxiety many of us harbour about our health. But how trustworthy are they, and what’s the evidence behind their effectiveness? Can your …

  Kampala, Uganda| APA |  Uganda government has increased tax levied on import of selected drugs including paracetamol, by pharmaceutical companies, from 2 percent to 12 percent. According to Uganda’s ministry of health the move which became effective August 1 , seeks to protect the locally made medicine from being out competed …

Common tadooba candle inspirations form avant  garde mixed media exhibition Kampala, Uganda | DOMINIC MUWANGUZI | Experimental artist Weazher Mayanja has evolved another new technique. The Kyambogo University don is this time using soot from tadooba candle flames on canvas to create captivating art forms. In an ongoing exhibition at …

  Why attempts to provide too much too fast are the cause of corruption and institutionalised incompetence The Last Word | ANDREW M. MWENDA|  Last week I moderated a World Health Organisation panel on providing universal healthcare in Africa. These ambitions assume that poor countries have the ability to deliver the set …