News, economies and societies across Africa
Health
Public health systems, disease outbreaks and the money that keeps clinics running: this section reports on health across the continent, together with medical research that concerns readers everywhere.
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Recent coverage includes the WHO data hub bringing 47 countries into a single regional view, the Economic Commission for Africa’s call for a new fiscal compact as health budgets tighten, and Ethiopia’s plan linking health investment with climate resilience and peacebuilding. Earlier reports followed COVID-19 control, Omicron in Botswana and a suspected Ebola case in Ouagadougou.
Wider research stories cover long COVID, the risk of very hot drinks for the oesophagus, counterfeit medicines and new approaches to depression and painful memories.
For an overview of how care is organised, start with the piece on challenges facing healthcare systems. These articles inform but do not replace medical advice.
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Ethiopia plans to make Africa’s medicines, but no timeline or factory is named yet
Muluken Argaw, Ethiopia’s State Minister for Health, links continental trade rules, shared supply chains and pooled buying to a push for locally made drugs.
Modifiable risks drive over half of Africa’s NCD deaths
Un examen de données du GBD 2023 place cardiopathies, AVC et maladies rénales en tête des décès, et l’Africa CDC appelle à une réponse continentale.
Nigeria tracks 62 Ebola contacts after first case in Abuja
Nigeria’s only Ebola patient was evacuated to Geneva on October 26; the NCDC has followed 62 contacts, monitored until November 13, none of them positive.
WHO says lead exposure kills 3.5 million a year, pushes testing in six African countries
Lead harms children’s brains and adults’ hearts and kidneys, and the WHO wants countries to act upstream, with testing support planned in six African states.
Nurse killed in Ebola response attack in eastern DR Congo
A nurse died and a colleague was badly hurt as they answered an alert in Tshopo province, part of a pattern of violence that responders…
Kenya traces 128 of 130 Ebola contacts and screens 652,000 travellers
Three health workers and a relative of the first patient tested positive while in quarantine, and Africa CDC is urging tighter border surveillance.
C-Care adds Kampala women’s hospital to its Uganda network
Roswell Hospital, a 30-bed fertility and maternity centre in central Kampala, joins a Mauritian-owned group that now runs six hospitals across Uganda.
Kenya confirms a third Ebola case in a woman already under quarantine
A 65-year-old woman fell ill under quarantine and tested positive, while health officials say 127 of 130 contacts have now been traced and isolated.
African countries turn to national genome projects to close a DNA data gap
Tunisia, Egypt and Senegal run national genome initiatives, and Tanzania, Kenya and South Africa have government-led efforts that are less advanced.
Remedial Health lets Nigerian pharmacies stock medicine on credit
A pharmacist who coded as a teenager and built two student firms now runs a Nigerian supplier that gives eligible pharmacies stock with little or…
Germany plans more support for African drug and vaccine makers
Berlin will add backing to a fund investing in African pharmaceutical firms, while an Africa CDC official says imports cover roughly 70% of medicines used…
Kenya’s first Ebola patient went undetected for six weeks
Africa CDC’s reconstruction shows a Kenyan businessman sought care for weeks in DR Congo and passed two airport checks before his diagnosis in Nairobi.