This report endorses the author's own views on the subject after taking up a laboratory adviser mission in Africa. Taking the example of laboratory services practice in sub-Saharan countries, it is shown that diagnosis of diseases which require the use of laboratory suffer from lapses in the quality of case-detection and case-reporting. These services lack management and an information system t...

Introduction The new 2005 International Health Regulations (IHR), a legally binding instrument for all 194 WHO member countries, significantly expanded the scope of reportable conditions and are intended to help prevent and respond to global public health threats. SAGES aims to improve local public health surveillance and IHR compliance with particular emphasis on resource-limited settings. Mor...

At the end of 2009, 5.25 million persons were receiving antiretroviral therapy (ART) worldwide, representing an 10fold increase over a period of 5 years [1]. The global scale-up of ART has led to an inevitable increase in HIV drug resistance (HIVDR) and a pool of resistant virus available to establish new infections. The report by Sungkanuparph et al in this issue highlights the need for streng...

Over 90% of the world's severe and fatal Plasmodium falciparum malaria is estimated to affect young children in sub-Sahara Africa, where it remains a common cause of hospital admission and inpatient mortality. Few children will ever be managed on high dependency or intensive care units and, therefore, rely on simple supportive treatments and parenteral anti-malarials. There has been some progre...

PURPOSE OF REVIEW Access to first-line antiretroviral therapy in resource-limited settings has increased rapidly in the last 5 years. Newer medicines with greater potency and better safety profiles open the possibility for improving first-line antiretroviral therapy for developing countries. RECENT FINDINGS Several medicines offer the potential to improve the simplicity, safety and efficacy o...