Feature Stories

“Blood cannot be manufactured. It is only through donations that it reaches those in need,” says Dominique Linguedze, a voluntary blood donor in Brazzaville, the riverside capital of the Republic of the Congo. “To give my blood is to give a little of myself. It makes me feel like a heroine.”

Growing up in the fishing village of Chorkor in Ghana’s Greater Accra region, 46-year-old Mary* experienced regular bouts of malaria. “I remember the fever, the profuse sweating and chills that shook my entire body, and I never want to go through that again,” she says. 

In 2018, 60-year-old James Kimeu Mulei suffered a badly broken ankle that left him unable to walk after a violent attack. A few years previously, this story could well have ended with a permanent injury that restricted Mulei’s ability to work and live a full life. 

When a man in Temessadou M’Boket – a village in the densely forested southern Guinea region – died in early August 2021 after suffering fever, headache and haemorrhage, Fassara Diawara, the head of a local clinic, was quick to act. 

“As a doctor, there are calls you can’t ignore. When there is a health emergency in your community, it is your responsibility to be part of the solution,” says Dr Emile Rwamasirabo, a urological surgeon who participated in Rwanda’s home-based care initiative for COVID-19.

Yole Monlwa, 22, vividly remembers the day he heard a radio broadcast on the importance of testing for leprosy. “At the time, I could not feel my hand, nor even move my fingers. I had had two ineffective treatments. I went with my parents to the hospital mentioned on the radio, and was told I had leprosy.”

Critical care patients in Lesotho will soon be spared a trip to South Africa to receive treatment. The country is on the verge of opening its first intensive care units in public hospitals.

Critical care patients in Lesotho will soon be spared a trip to South Africa to receive treatment. The country is on the verge of opening its first intensive care units in public hospitals.

“I came to take the COVID-19 booster dose and brought my baby for (childhood routine) immunization,” says Cacilda Manjate, a young mother waiting in a consulting room of the Matola II clinic just outside Mozambique’s capital Maputo. “For me taking the vaccine is important because I have a relative who died of COVID-19. I don’t want to lose anyone else in the family.”