Trauma is a widely acknowledged problem facing individuals and communities in developing countries. In sub-Saharan Africa-a region that is home to some of the world's worst human rights violations, ethnic and civil conflicts, disease epidemics, and conditions of poverty-trauma is an all-too-common experience in citizens' daily lives. In order to address these conditions effectively, the impact ...

Background: The prevalence of diabetes is rising globally, and Sub-Saharan Africa is no exception. With diverse health challenges, health authorities in Sub-Saharan Africa and international donors need good data on the epidemiology and public health implications of diabetes in order to plan and prioritise their health programmes. Methods: We conducted a systematic literature review of papers pu...

BACKGROUND: The objective of this paper is to describe the numbers, characteristics, and trends in the migration to the United States of physicians trained in sub-Saharan Africa. METHODS: We used the American Medical Association 2002 Masterfile to identify and describe physicians who received their medical training in sub-Saharan Africa and are currently practicing in the USA. RESULTS: More tha...

BACKGROUND Plague is a rapidly progressing, serious illness in humans that is likely to be fatal if not treated. It remains a public health threat, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. In spite of plague's highly focal nature, a thorough ecological understanding of the general distribution pattern of plague across sub-Saharan Africa has not been established to date. In this study, we used human pl...

BACKGROUND Sub-Saharan Africa has the largest burden of pediatric HIV in the world. Global target has been set for eradication of pediatric HIV by 2015 but there are still so many complex issues facing HIV infected and affected children in the sub-continent. OBJECTIVE To review the current and emerging challenges facing pediatric HIV care in sub-Saharan Africa; and proffer solutions that coul...

This commentary follows up on an editorial by Eyal and colleagues in which these authors discuss the implications of the emergence of non-physician clinicians (NPCs) on the health labour market for the education of medical doctors. We generally agree with those authors and we want to stress the importance of clarifying the terminology to describe these practitioners and of defining more formall...

We investigate trends in health human capital using data on infant mortality rates and adult heights for birth cohorts from 1960 to 1985 from 39 developing countries. In Sub-Saharan Africa, despite declining infant mortality rates, adult heights have not risen. We argue that childhood exposure to disease, and nutrition, have remained stagnant in Sub-Saharan Africa and the decline in infant mort...

By the end of 2001, an estimated 40 million people worldwide—2.7 million under age 15—were living with HIV/AIDS. More than 70 percent of these people (28.1 million) live in Sub-Saharan Africa. Another killer, malaria, is responsible for as many as half the deaths of African children under the age of five. The disease kills more than one million children each year—2,800 per day—in Africa alone. ...

Recurrent panniculitis in a patient receiving protease inhibitor therapy for human immu-nodeficiency virus infection. Some two decades into the, predominantly heterosexual, HIV epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa, we have yet to challenge the epidemic in a concerted fashion in perhaps its most pertinent population. Not only has little intervention research been carried out on adolescents in sub-Saha...

Sub-Saharan Africa has a disproportionate burden of disease and faces a major public-health challenge from non-communicable diseases. Although infectious diseases continue to afflict Africa, the proportion of the overall disease burden in sub-Saharan Africa attributable to cancer is rising. The region is predicted to have a greater than 85% increase in cancer burden by 2030. Approaches to minim...