December 11, 2022
Africa: Is My RAT Actually Working? How to Tell If Your Covid Test Can Detect Omicron
You've tested negative for COVID using a rapid antigen test (RAT), but are a close contact of a positive family member and have symptoms. So you might be wondering if you're really… Read more »
Africa: Beyond Vaccine Hesitancy - Understanding Systemic Barriers to Getting Vaccinated
The term "vaccine hesitancy" was in wide use years before the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a pandemic. The term focuses on individual-level attitudes toward… Read more »
Africa: 'Polycrisis' May Be a Buzzword, but It Could Help Us Tackle the World's Woes
Commentators increasingly warn that the world is tightly bound in a "polycrisis," a tangled knot of crises spanning global systems. But if we have any hope of escaping it, we must… Read more »
Africa: When Did Humans First Start to Speak? How Language Evolved in Africa
When did humans first begin to speak, which speech sounds were uttered first, and when did language evolve from those humble beginnings? These questions have long fascinated… Read more »
December 10, 2022
Africa: Climate Crisis in Africa Exposes Real Cause of Hunger
In the waning hours of the year's biggest climate change conference - COP27 - we learned of a deal to create a loss and damage fund. This is essentially a source of finance to… Read more »
December 09, 2022
Africa: African Debt - How to Break Unequal Relationships in Financing Deals
Africa is facing some impossibly difficult choices when it comes to financing its development. Countries need hundreds of billions of dollars each year to meet their climate,… Read more »
December 08, 2022
Africa: Covid Treatments and Prevention Are Still Improving - So the Longer You Can Avoid It the Better
There have been enough COVID infections in the UK since March 2020 for every person to have been infected between 1.3 and two times, according to mathematical modelling. Read more »
December 07, 2022
Africa: How Physios and Occupational Therapists Are Helping Long Covid Sufferers
Treating people for long COVID - that is, symptoms that last longer than four weeks after COVID infection - can be extremely complex due to the wide variety of problems associated… Read more »
Africa: Outer Space Talks Are a Welcome Addition to the US-Africa Leaders Summit - What's On the Table
President Joe Biden is hosting the Second US-Africa Leaders Summit in mid-December 2022. Read more »
December 06, 2022
Africa: Measles - Why the World Health Organization Has Declared It an 'Imminent Global Threat'
One consequence of the pandemic was reduced access to routine healthcare and lower uptake of immunisations. As a result, in November 2022, the World Health Organization declared… Read more »
Africa: Feeling Forgetful After Covid? Study Shows the Virus Can Affect Short-Term Memory
Although it's well known that COVID affects the respiratory system, it's perhaps less well known that the virus can also affect cognitive function. Read more »
December 05, 2022
Africa: Earthshot Prize - Five Winners That Will Help Solve Major Environmental Problems
Climate change is one of the greatest threats ever to face humanity. With mounting storms, fires, floods and droughts and the annual disappointment of international negotiations,… Read more »
Africa: Why We Need Open-Source Science Innovation - Not Patents and Paywalls
As we prepare to invest money to prevent the next global pandemic and find solutions to many other problems, science funders have a large opportunity to move towards open science… Read more »
Africa: A Liver Disease Drug Could Be Repurposed to Protect Against Covid - New Research
Almost three years into the pandemic, we're still regularly seeing hundreds of thousands of new COVID cases recorded each day worldwide. In a new study, involving a combination of… Read more »
Africa: Pharma's Expensive Gaming of the Drug Patent System Is Successfully Countered By the Medicines Patent Pool
Biomedical innovation reached a new era during the COVID-19 pandemic as drug development went into overdrive. But the ways that brand companies license their patented drugs grant… Read more »
December 08, 2022
Africa: China's Belt and Road Infrastructure Projects Could Help or Hurt Oceans and Coasts Worldwide
More than one-third of all people in the world live in cities, towns and villages on coasts. They rely on healthy oceans for many things, including food, income, a stable climate… Read more »
December 04, 2022
Africa: A Dangerous Pesticide Isn't Being Monitored in Key Bird of Prey Populations - We're Shedding Light On That Gap
It was once regarded as a miracle chemical to protect against disease and improve global food production. The man who discovered its properties even won a Nobel Prize for medicine.… Read more »
December 02, 2022
Africa: New Book Lifts the Lid On Who Profits from Corruption in South Africa
The new book The Unaccountables: The Powerful Politicians and Corporations who Profit from Impunity is welcome for the way it contextualises corruption. It shows how politicians… Read more »
December 03, 2022
Africa: World Cup Final 16 - African Performances Mark a Definitive Moment in Football
For Africa to have multiple teams go beyond the group phase to reach the Round of 16 in a World Cup is a milestone. The remarkable result at the 2022 men's Fifa World Cup in Qatar… Read more »
December 01, 2022
Africa: Digital Storytelling Can Be a Powerful Tool for Water Researchers
Storytelling and science may, at first glance, seem like strange bedfellows. Scientists usually share their research through academic journals and books or at academic conferences. Read more »
Africa: Twitter Lifted Its Ban On Covid Misinformation - Research Shows This Is a Grave Risk to Public Health
Twitter's decision to no longer enforce its COVID-19 misinformation policy, quietly posted on the site's rules page and listed as effective Nov. 23, 2022, has researchers and… Read more »
Africa: Ventilation Reduces the Risk of Covid. So Why Are We Still Ignoring It?
At the end of the third year of the pandemic, we are no longer surprised to hear we're in a new wave of infection. It's fuelled by new sub-variants of the virus that may evade… Read more »
Africa: 'Historic Moment' as Ramaphosa Faces Possible Impeachment
South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa has an impeachment case to answer. This was the finding of the independent parliamentary panel probing the scandal over the theft of… Read more »
November 30, 2022
Africa: South Africa's Intelligence Watchdog Is Failing Civil Society. How to Restore Its Credibility
In October, South African president Cyril Ramaphosa and his cabinet committed to a range of reforms to the country's intelligence services. He based these reforms on… Read more »
Africa: Overweight Women May Be At Highest Risk of Long Covid - New Research
While hundreds of thousands of people are still getting COVID every day across the globe, reassuringly, the number of people dying as a result of the infection has dropped… Read more »