In Africa, hydro-meteorological disasters (HMDs) have hit with increasing frequency and magnitude in recent years, with detrimental impacts on local livelihoods. African countries display a patchwork of national policies and institutional frameworks to address these rising HMDs. This paper examines the heterogeneity that exists within Africa′s institutional arrangements for climate-related disa...

It is estimated globally 3.2 million children were living with HIV in 2014, that mostly in sub-Saharan Africa. However, the majority of them infected to HIV from their mothers during pregnancy, during delivery or breastfeeding (1). Antiretroviral therapy (ART) use during and after pregnancy is essential for prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) of HIV (2).  In the absence of any in...

INTRODUCTION Following the start of the World Health Organization (WHO) Programme for International Drug Monitoring (PIDM) by 10 member countries in 1968, it took another 24 years for the first two African countries to join in 1992, by which time the number of member countries in the PIDM had grown to 33. Whilst pharmacovigilance (PV), including the submission of individual case safety reports ...

Over four decades of the development of data protection laws, the world has witnessed data protection regimes finally arriving in Africa. At present, there are eleven African countries out of 54 with comprehensive data protection legislation. These are Cape Verde (22 January 2001), Seychelles (24 December 2003), Burkina Faso (20 April 2004), Mauritius (17 June 2004), Tunisia (27 July 2004), Sen...

This special theme issue includes a feast of high quality papers by African researchers on a range of topics of great relevance to health and health care in Africa. Despite our best efforts we did not achieve the geographical spread of submissions that we hoped for, mostly because we receive articles from authors in only a few African countries. We do not know the extent to which this reflects ...

• Some evidence is available to show that Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth in African countries is under threat from the impact of natural hazards, particularly agricultural drought. This evidence remains patchy as availability of data on disaster losses in Africa is low. • National reports prepared by African countries on the implementation of the Hyogo Framework for Action and the related ...

Universal access to reproductive health services entails strengthening health systems, but requires significant resource commitments as well as efficient and effective use of those resources. A number of international organizations and governments in developing countries are putting efforts into tracking the flow of health resources in order to inform resource mobilization and allocation, strat...

In 2012, the World Health Assembly of the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the completion of polio eradication a programmatic emergency. Indigenous wild poliovirus (WPV) transmission remains uninterrupted in Nigeria (in the WHO African Region [AFR]) and in Afghanistan and Pakistan (in the WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region [EMR]). In the WHO AFR, multiple WPV outbreaks have occurred since...

The number of vaccines available to low-income countries has increased dramatically over the last decade. Overall infant immunization coverage in the WHO African region has stagnated in the past few years while countries' ability to maintain high immunization coverage rates following introduction of new vaccines has been uneven. This case study examines post-introduction coverage among African ...

The number of countries that recognise the importance of engineering has grown sharply in recent years. Survival of less developed countries in the next century will undoubtedly depend on sufficient technological personnel. Increase of personnel with technological skills is a prerequisite of economic growth. The low levels of technological and scientific literacy within the population of South ...