The lack of education and political will, poverty, out-moded traditional beliefs, to mention but a few, have been widely blamed for causing severe and sometimes unwarranted health catastrophies of genocidal proportions on the African continent. Child killer diseases, malaria, tuberculosis, water borne diseases, HIV/AIDS, among other preventable ailments have killed millions in their wake. As rightly said by the former UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, on May 13, 2000 “More people (…) died of Aids in the past year (1999-2000, ndlr) in Africa than in all the wars on the continent”.
Health file
Avian flu back in Egypt and Asian countries
The World Health Organisation – the WHO – has reported the death of a young woman in Egypt due to the avian flu...
Botswana moves to tackle complex HIV situation
Botswana government has approved to reduce the age through which
individuals would be deemed capable of giving informed consent for HIV
testing as part of a...
Zimbabwe: Man in court with own intestines in bag
Shortfalls in Zimbabwe's health sector was highlighted last Wednesday, when a man awaiting trial for stealing motor cycles turned up in court holding his...
HIV/AIDS: UN report show decline in Africa, increase in Europe and Asia
United Nation's programme on HIV/AIDS, UNAIDS has announced that HIV-AIDS infections have reduced in Africa, but are increasing in Eastern Europe and central Asia....
U.S. to continue aid to Uganda health sector despite economic constraints
USA ambassador to Uganda, Jerry Lanier has said in a statement issued today that the dramatic growth in the delivery of health care services...
Cameroon establishes its own generic drug production unit
At a time when over seventy per cent of Africans still lack access to treatments against HIV, malaria and tuberculosis, among other diseases, Cameroon...
More Television, shorter lives
According to an Australian study, the risk of death from cardiovascular disease increases by around 20% for each hour per day we spend in...
Dow Jones joins forces with the Global Fund against HIV/AIDS
The Dow Jones Indexes and The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, announced their partnership through the creation of a new index;...
South Sudan launches Sudan Household Health Survey
The Federal and South Sudan Ministries of Health, have jointly launched Sudan Household Health Survey.
The survey which is to start...
Uganda to host first African HIV/AIDS vaccine research centre
Uganda has been voted to host the secretariat of Africa’s first HIV/AIDS vaccine research center at the ongoing 5th forum of the African AIDS...
Uganda declared guinea worm free zone by WHO
Investigations carried out by an international committee throughout Uganda have revealed that there has not been a single reported case of guinea worm infection...
Vaccinations before sex
Genital herpes, syphilis, chlamydia are all part of the “sexually-transmissible infections/diseases” (or STIs/STD) category, but cannot at all be compared with HIV/AIDS, which is...
Black Women prone to deadlier breast cancer than White counterparts
African women and women of African descent are likely to die younger from breast cancer than any other ethnic group, investigations have revealed. Researchers...
Ghana: Beware! National Health Insurance Reforms
There is much that can be done to put the fundamental notion of universal access to health through better risk management on a surer...
Zimbabwe records sharp drops in HIV cases but rate remains “high”
Zimbabwe's economy could be in bad shape but one notable improvement
is on its fight against HIV/AIDS. On Thursday, the health ministry announced that infection...
AIDS Vaccine: Thailand tests yield positive results ahead of South African test results
For the first time a vaccine project is underway to reduce the risk of infection. The relative success of a test in Thailand has...
Ethiopia: Strange disease causing several deaths in Addis not unexpected
The outbreak of a disease termed as Acute Watery Diarrhea (AWD) has hit the Ethiopian capital city of Addis Ababa. Over 200 persons have...
Zimbabwe: Swine flu hits amid fears of renewed cholera infections as doctors strike
The deadly swine flue has hit Zimbabwe amid fears the epidemic could wreck havoc in the troubled country where public doctors have been on...
Sudan-Uganda: Nodding disease not linked to epilepsy?
Hundreds of children in northern Uganda have been affected by a rare and unexplained "nodding disease" that causes seizures, physical and mental stunting and...
Ethiopia: Swine flu/A-H1N1 testing in Kenya questioned
Ethiopia has not been spared by the rise of swine flu or A/H1N1 pandemic that has caused several deaths in every region of the...
Swine flu – A/H1N1 influenza: Symptoms and treatment
Six new cases of the A (H1N1) influenza also known as the Swine flu were confirmed Monday in Morocco, bringing the recorded number of...
Homosexuals and AIDS: Confronting a dangerous African taboo
The internationally acclaimed medical journal The Lancet Monday published the first scientific study showing that male homosexuals are more often than not infected with...
HIV/AIDS: First South African vaccine being tested in Cape Town and Soweto
The scientific community won’t be bogged down after the initial failure of an experimental HIV vaccine developed by the U.S. laboratory Merck & Co....
Diabetes: Arab world, North Africa, African-Americans hit by diabetic scourge
It is thought that the number of diabetics across the world will increase by no less than 130% in the next 25 years! This...
Ethiopia: Concerns over health preparedness grows as Swine flu (A/H1N1) cases rise
Residents of Addis Ababa, capital of Ethiopia, have been gripped by fear as increasing numbers of people are confirmed by the health ministry as...
Lessons on Malaria control from The Gambia
When it comes to fighting malaria, Gambia is leading the way. Engaged in a relentless battle against this disease since the beginning of this...
Polio making a troubling comeback in Nigeria
The world has not seen the last of this disease. Almost eradicated in 2000, polio has returned with a vengeance after the local authorities...
Tuberculosis affecting millions as cases double
In a recently released WHO report, more than 9 million new cases of tuberculosis were recorded worldwide in 2007. The 9,270,000 cases recorded 30,000...
Rabies introduced to Africa by Europeans 200 years ago?
With 24,000 deaths each year, Africa is the second in line when it comes to continents affected by rabies, the first being Asia. A...
Does swine flu spread to 74 countries make it pandemic?
In the space of three months, the world has watched what seemed to be a localized flu outbreak in Mexico spread to 74 countries...