Feature Stories

Vaccines help battle cholera outbreak in Malawi

In late 2022 staff at Tukombo health centre, a stone’s throw away from the shores of Lake Malawi, were stretched to the limit. The small facility in northern Malawi had been repurposed to serve as a cholera treatment centre to care for hundreds of patients as cases surged amid the country’s worst outbreak.

In Nigeria, boosting viral hepatitis awareness and treatment

Abuja – Four months before her wedding and on the eve of starting a new job, Dada Titilope went in for a routine medical check. It was then that the 36-year-old resident of Ile-Ife Osun State in Southwestern Nigeria discovered that she had hepatitis B.

Bringing care closer to eliminate cervical cancer

For several years many women across Guinea lacked access to screening services for cervical cancer—the most common cancer among women—especially in remote areas. A concerted push by the health authorities to integrate cervical cancer screening in sexual and reproductive health services, thousands of women now have the chance of early detection and adequate support.

How wastewater surveillance is helping the COVID-19 fight

Accra/Lusaka/Pretoria —Twice a week, a team of scientists from South Africa’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) traverses the country’s metropolitan areas, visiting up to 50 wastewater treatment sites to fill bottles with effluent. The bottles are sealed and disinfected, then transported to a network of laboratories across the country where their contents will be tested for the presence of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

Aminata Kaoucen, Nurse

Aminata Kaoucen works as a nurse for a local NGO called Action pour le Bien-Être in Southern Niger, where she attends to refugees from neighbouring Nigeria at an integrated health centre in the Garin Kaka refugee camp.