Cannabis is not indigenous to southern Africa, having probably been introduced into the Mozambique area in pre-colonial times by Arab traders many centuries ago. It was adopted by the Khoikhoi as a valued intoxicant and herbal remedy that was chewed or boiled, and was traded from the Xhosa communities living in the eastern parts of South Africa. The smoking of it began after the introduction of...

East Africa Medical Journal Vol. 89 No. 6 June 2012 ANTIMICROBIAL PROPERTIES OF HUGONIA CASTENEIFOLIA AND ITS POTENTIAL USE FOR THE CONTROL OF OPPORTUNISTIC INFECTIONS K. Korir, Kenya Medical Research Institute P. O. Box 54840-00200, Nairobi, Kenya, C. Mutai, Kenya Medical Research Institute P. O. Box 54840-00200, Nairobi, Kenya, J. Nandako, Catholic University of Eastern Africa P. O. Box 62157...

Exploring the effects of different types of PM2.5 is necessary to reduce associated deaths, especially in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Hence we determined types of ambient PM2.5 before exploring their effects on under-five and maternal mortality in Africa. The spectral derivate of aerosol optical depth (AOD) from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) products from 2...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to discuss the status, trends and challenges of library and information education and training in Eastern and Southern Africa. It notes that library and information education and training in Africa is undergoing rapid change, with difficult challenges to be overcome. For example, during the past 20 years, the number of library schools has grown in some reg...

The East African Rift System transects the anomalously high-elevation Ethiopian and East African plateaux that together form part of the 6,000-km-long African superswell structure. Rifting putatively developed as a result of mantle plume activity that initiated under eastern Africa. The mantle activity has caused topographic uplift that has been connected to African Cenozoic climate change and ...

BACKGROUND Although human African trypanosomiasis (HAT) is uncommon among patients from non-endemic countries (NEC), there has been an increase in the number of cases reported in recent years. METHODS A systematic review of the literature was performed. The number of incoming tourists to HAT endemic countries was obtained from the United Nations World Tourism Organization. All HAT cases diagn...

Eighty Vibrio cholerae O1 strains selected to represent the 1998-to-1999 history of the largest cholera epidemic in Kenya were characterized by ribotyping, antimicrobial susceptibility, and random amplified polymorphic DNA patterns. Except for 19 strains from 4 local outbreaks in North Eastern Province along the Somalia border, the other 61 strains from 25 outbreaks occurring in districts scatt...

Towards understanding the molecular epidemiology of a severe dog rabies epidemic in the KwaZulu Natal province of South Africa, we analyzed a variable 592 nucleotide genome sequence domain of 170 rabies viruses from KwaZulu Natal and surrounding regions. Viruses from the KwaZulu Natal and Eastern Cape provinces belonged to a unique lineage, circulating as two independent and expanding epidemiol...

In eastern and southern Africa, there has been a rapid increase in the prevalence of alleles with mutations in the Plasmodium falciparum dihydrofolate reductase gene (dhfr) associated with increased risk of clinical failure of sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine (S/P). Molecular methods for surveillance of these mutations are now widespread, but the usual analysis detects only the most prevalent allele i...

We modelled the present and future sub-Saharan winter distributions of 64 trans-Saharan migrant passerines to predict the potential impacts of climate change. These predictions used the recent ensemble modelling developments and the latest IPCC climatic simulations to account for possible methodological uncertainties. Results suggest that 37 species would face a range reduction by 2100 (16 of t...