African Leaders Issue Scorecard on Malaria Progress

Olyset
Bed nets prevent malaria.

The African Leaders Malaria Alliance,ALMA, has issued its latest quarterly tally of progress in the fight against malaria. ALMA launched the Scorecard for Accountability and Action in September 2011, to track gains and challenges in the effort to end malaria deaths and improve maternal and child health. The alliance of African heads of state and governments is headed this year by Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who took over from Tanzania's Jakaya Kikwete. The group compiles malaria data country by country. as well as continent-wide. A current focus is to push policies that will slow patients' resistance to artemisinin, a major drug in the malaria treatment arsenal.

AllAfrica on the Move...With the One Millionth Net

AllAfrica
AllAfrica's Samantha Nkirote McKenzie, right, with American TV star Serinda Swan and tech entrepreneur Ryan Allis.

AllAfrica's Samantha Nkirote McKenzie accompanied a UN Foundation team delivering bed nets to Kakuma, a refugee camp in Kenya's far northwest that UN officials say has over 94,000 people, mostly Somalis and Southern Sudanese, with 100 more arriving daily. Achol Deng, mother of four, received the one millionth bed net distributed by Nothing But Nets and the UN refugee agency.

See reports from the visit on Twitter

PhotoEssay » Refugees Arrive at Kenya's Kakuma Camp

Gambia: Diabetes Poses a Growing Threat

Phuong Tran/IRIN
Syringe for insulin injection. In 2010, the World Health Organisation estimated that four percent of the current population would have diabetes by 2030.

Nigeria: Doctors Must Hone Health Skills

UN Photo/Eric Kanalstein
Maternal health experts are calling on Nigerian doctors to take the initiative to update their diagnostic skills so they can provide more optimal care to women and their children.

South Africa: Medicines Council Delay Puts Lives at Risk

IRIN
Doctors are urgently calling on the South African regulatory body to allow the 'compassionate use' of a promising drug, developed to fight Drug Resistant Tuberculosis.

Rapid Test Among New Measures to Fight Malaria

Gates Foundation
Malaria testing. The government of Kenya has announced plans to introduce rapid diagnostic test kits that will take 10 to 15 minutes to detect malaria.

Vaccines Can Save Nigeria Trillions

Amr Emam/IRIN
A local health worker carries polio vaccines door-to-door. Nigeria can save over N2.6 trillion from utilizing vaccines in its health

The Legacy of Aids for Uganda's Children

Aubrey Graham/IRIN
Stolen childhood: The elderly in rural Uganda are increasingly reliant on their grandchildren to sustain households.

Taking Care of the Elderly in Africa

UNICEF/Ben Parker
Health systems need to adapt to meet the care needs of older people as the shift to aging populations gathers pace in low- and middle-income countries, says a report.

Rising Poverty Threatens Gains in TB Fight

Amr Emam/IRIN
Rising poverty, overcrowded public transport, and sprawling slums threaten to reverse the gains made in eradicating tuberculosis in Egypt.

Trial of Mobile Experimental Malaria Huts

Stelios Comninos
(file photo) Experimental huts have been used in Africa since the 1940s, and improvements have been introduced to enable researchers to better understand how mosquitoes behave in human dwellings.

Is Maternal Health a 'Right to Life' Issue?

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Africa leads the world in maternal death rates, and access to contraception is increasingly seen as a life-or-death issue in an acute crisis situation.

Uganda: Doctors Continue Nodding Disease Research

Agatha Ayebazibwe/Monitor
Doctors are continuing to research the causes of nodding disease to figure out how best to eliminate the mysterious illness.

Africa: 'Miracle of Vaccines' Will Help Deliver on Development

Olivier Asselin/GAVI
With GAVI support, African countries have the opportunity to introduce new vaccines against the primary causes of pneumonia and diarrhoea.

Water Seen as Essential to Global Peace

Kate Holt/IRIN
A report from the U.S. intelligence community predicts water insecurity will hinder the ability of 'key countries' to produce food and generate energy, contributing to instability and state failure.

The World Unites to Fight Tuberculosis

David Gough/IRIN
Communities across Africa and the rest of the world unite on Saturday to recognize World TB Day.

Traditional Male Circumcision With a Modern Edge

David Njagi/AllAfrica
A health worker demonstrates how to use various instruments for male medical circumcision. Kenya aims to circumcise more than one million men by 2013 in medical facilities.

Mali: Instability in North Hinders Long Term Fight Against Fistula

UNMIL
(file photo) Female doctor performing an operation to correct Fistula. Instability in northern Mali has had both an immediate and a potential long-term impact on efforts to address fistulas.

InFocus: Health and Medicine

Nigeria: Parties at Loggerheads Over Sacked Doctors

picture

Political parties are at logger heads over the government's response to the resident doctors' strike, which has escalated the industrial crisis in the health sector. Read more »

Rwanda: Conditioned Legalisation of Abortion Divides Society

picture

The approval of an abortion law in Rwanda has been met with mixed reactions - the government sees it as a way of promoting women's right and churches believe it is a violation of ... Read more »

Top Headlines

AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 130 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.