SETTING There is a high burden of respiratory disease in sub-Saharan Africa. To address this problem, the World Health Organization launched the 'Practical approach to Lung Health' (PAL), i.e., locally applicable integrated syndromic algorithms, to improve primary care management of these diseases. OBJECTIVE To examine the evidence for the impact of PAL on the diagnosis and management of tube...

Sub-Saharan Africa suffers an inordinate burden of disease and does not have the numbers of suitably trained health care workers to address this challenge. New concepts in health sciences education are needed to offer alternatives to current training approaches.A perspective of integrated training in population health for undergraduate medical and nursing education is advanced, rather than cont...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate whether the amount of randomised clinical research on various medical conditions is related to the burden of disease and health needs of the local populations in sub-Saharan Africa. DESIGN Construction and analysis of comprehensive database of randomised controlled trials in sub-Saharan Africa based on Medline, the Cochrane Controlled Trials Register, and several African...

The last fifteen years have witnessed a significant increase in investment in research ethics capacity development throughout the world. We examine nine research ethics training programs that are focused on Sub-Saharan Africa and supported by the US National Institutes of Health. We collected data from grants awards' documents and annual reports supplemented by questionnaires completed by the t...

From January to April 2012, 16 cases of W135 invasive meningococcal infection were reported in France. Of these, eight were linked to a recent travel history to Sub-Saharan Africa. These cases were reported in France concomitantly with the meningitis epidemic season in Sub-Saharan Africa. Considering the high number of travellers between France and West-African countries belonging to the so-cal...

Disability research in contemporary sub-Saharan Africa is developing rapidly, and this is something to be celebrated. This article reviews some contemporary developments and suggests that there are five central, and interrelated, challenges for the field. These challenges - experience, expertise, enumeration, evidence, and expectations - go to the heart of thinking about disability research in ...

Over the past three decades, Sub-Saharan Africa has been viewed as the “forgotten continent”. With her many problems of hunger, epidemics, war, and other related socioeconomic problems, the diffusion of the Internet and related technologies might be the last thing to be associated with Africa. However, we are experiencing the contrary. Sub-Saharan countries are experiencing tremendous growth in...

BACKGROUND Despite vast improvements in transfusion services in sub-Saharan Africa over the last decade, there remain serious concerns on the safety and adequacy of the blood supply across the region. OBJECTIVE This review paper ascertains the role of pathogen reduction technology (PRT) in improving blood safety and supply adequacy in the region. METHOD The state of blood safety in sub-Saha...

342 David Gisselquist, John Potterat and Stuart Brody, writing recently in the SAMJ, suggest that the high prevalence of HIV among infants and children in sub-Saharan Africa is a result of iatrogenic transmission of HIV, rather than mother-to-child transmission (MCTC). Earlier, the same group have suggested that unsafe injections are a major, if not the main, mode of transmission of HIV-1 in su...