Experts skeptical about Nigeria's free healthcare plans →
Nigeria's government has promised to provide health coverage to millions of citizens, but experts are not convinced it will happen based on the country's track record. Read more.
Severe drought in Zimbabwe triggers food crisis →
Zimbabwe's worst drought in three decades has caused food shortages in large swathes of the country and worries are building about increasing child malnutrition rates. Read more.
HIV in Mozambique: Starting and staying on treatment →
Mozambique has set ambitious targets for getting more people with HIV on treatment, and it is testing innovative ways to help them stay on the life-saving drugs. Read more.
Will Nigeria's new government fix the health system →
Nigeria's health system has not received the attention or finances it needs to address the country's disease burdens. Will the new government address the problems? Read more.
The growing burden of NCDs in Nigeria →
While Nigeria's health system focuses on combating infectious diseases, a growing tide of non-communicable diseases in the burgeoning middle class threatens to eliminate health gains. Why isn't this issue being tackled? Read more.
Emmanuel Gasakure →
Cardiologist and former Dean of the then National University of Rwanda's Faculty of Medicine. Born in Butare, Rwanda, on April 13, 1958, he died in Kigali, Rwanda, on Feb 25, 2015, aged 56 years. Read more.
Violence in Burundi triggers refugee crisis →
Political turmoil in Burundi has caused tens of thousands of people to flee their homes, many to refugee camps in neighboring countries. Read more.
McLeod Ernest Chitiyo →
Leading pathologist in Zimbabwe. He was born in Old Umtali Mission, Zimbabwe, on Nov 30, 1932, and died in Harare, Zimbabwe, on March 2, 2015, aged 82 years. Read more.
Tackling childhood tuberculosis in Uganda →
Alongside scores of pregnant women and new mothers, Elizabeth Namubiru estimates that she and her team treat 200 children every month at her small Kiganda Maternity Clinic in Uganda. Children that are treated at the clinic come from the neighborhood surrounding the centre—a poor, transient community in Uganda's capital, Kampala. People live in conditions ideal for spreading tuberculosis and, each month, several of Namubiru's child patients show up with symptoms of the disease. But she says that parents almost never ask her to check for it.
Even when her staff suspect tuberculosis, they do not have the medical background or the equipment they need to diagnose it. Therefore, Namubiru refers children to the better-equipped government hospital nearby. However, many patients are unwilling to brave the long waits at the underfunded and understaffed national hospital. As a result, an unknown number of children with tuberculosis simply go untreated, often until it is too late.