Abidjan, Ivory Coast | AFP | Nearly 400 tonnes of fake medicines have been seized over two years in Ivory Coast, whose main city Abidjan is a West African haven for counterfeit drugs, the health ministry said Tuesday. Counterfeit medicine is the scourge of Africa and the cause of around …
Read More »MPs intervene, aid woman deliver baby at rural health centre
SCOVIA: This is my fourth baby; I am lucky this one has survived. My third born died while I was delivering at home. Hoima, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Legislators on the Committee on Health on an oversight visit came to the aid of an expectant mother and helped her …
Read More »The search for a baby just got easier
Hopeful patients get first experience at Uganda’s first public women’s hospital Kampala, Uganda | FLAVIA NASSAKA | People wander around. Some take selfies and group photos. All rave about the convenience, the décor and point at the nicely positioned potted fresh flowers and photo frames hanging over neatly painted sky …
Read More »Infections that won’t go away
Here is why your diagnosis, treatment could be wrong Kampala, Uganda | FLAVIA NASSAKA | Martin Muhangi often gets headache, fever, joint aches and sometimes stomach ache. He has been given medicine from hospital but the ailments persist. But the bank teller in Kampala is more frustrated because the doctors keep …
Read More »The coming Community Health Workers
Experts query their cost and compare them to current VHTs Kampala, Uganda | FLAVIA NASSAKA | Flue, cough, headache, or diarrhea; these simple ailments can be quite uncomfortable. But are they worth going to a health facility to get treated, especially if it is far away, crowded, and the doctor might …
Read More »Candidate AIDS vaccine passes key early test
Paris, France | AFP | The near 40-year quest for an AIDS vaccine received a hopeful boost Saturday when scientists announced that a trial drug triggered an immune response in humans and shielded monkeys from infection. Shown to be safe in humans, the candidate vaccine has now advanced to the …
Read More »Inside Africa’s real tragedy
THE LAST WORD: How the ideology of a welfare state has destroyed our continent and impoverished its people THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda | Everywhere I turn these days, Ugandans (and Africans generally) are complaining about the sorry state of our education and healthcare systems. There is a …
Read More »Ebola vaccine arrives in DR Congo amid outbreak
Kinshasa, DR Congo | AFP | Thousands of doses of Ebola vaccine arrived Wednesday in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which is facing an outbreak of the deadly virus, the health ministry said. Congolese authorities declared the outbreak in the northwest region near Congo-Brazzaville on May 8, and three have …
Read More »WFP chief urges North Korea to grant more access
Seoul, South Korea | AFP | North Korea needs to allow more access and monitoring for international aid, the head of the UN’s World Food Programme said Tuesday following a four-day visit to the country. The WFP is one of the few aid agencies operating in the isolated country, which …
Read More »Ghana fights malarial chemical resistance with new spray
Obuasi, Ghana | AFP | Bismark Owusu moves food and bowls from a bedroom and covers clothes and furniture with a large sheet before mixing a mosquito-killing chemical with water in his spray pack. He then puts on head-to-toe safety gear, straps the pack to his back and methodically sprays …
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