December 14, 2022
Africa: Masks Are Still a Tried-and-True Way to Help Keep Yourself and Others Safe
The cold and flu season of 2022 has begun with a vengeance. Viruses that have been unusually scarce over the past three years are reappearing at remarkably high levels, sparking a… Read more »
December 13, 2022
Africa: Covid - What We Know About New Omicron Variant Bf.7
Since the COVID variant omicron emerged in late 2021, it has rapidly evolved into multiple subvariants. One subvariant, BF.7, has recently been identified as the main variant… Read more »
December 14, 2022
Africa: TB Is Once Again the Deadliest Disease in Africa - What Went Wrong
Effective tuberculosis (TB) treatment has been available for the past 60 years. But TB remains the leading cause of death from a single infectious agent. It ranks above HIV and… Read more »
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 »
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 »
December 06, 2022
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: 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 »
December 01, 2022
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 »
November 30, 2022
Nigeria: Covid Deepened Inequalities in HIV Treatment - What We Learnt in Nigeria
The 2022 World AIDS Day theme is Equalize. The reason for this focus is that HIV reflects economic and social inequity. People with low socio-economic status are worst affected by… Read more »
South Africa: Covid Affected Access to HIV Treatment - the Stories of Migrant Women in South Africa Show How
South Africa has made massive strides in the fight against HIV. One of the country's flagship interventions has been the prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) of HIV.… 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 »
Africa: What Covid Has Taught Us About Sharing Our Emotions - and Why Now's a Good Time to Share Again
Although they were only two-and-a-half years ago, the first months of the COVID pandemic and ensuing lockdowns seem like a distant past. Read more »
November 29, 2022
Africa: Six Common Covid Myths Busted By a Virologist and a Public Health Expert
Almost three years into the pandemic, myths and misinformation remain widespread. Here we, a virologist and a public health researcher, debunk some common misconceptions about… Read more »
November 27, 2022
Africa: Covid Nasal Sprays May One Day Prevent and Treat Infection. Here's Where the Science Is Up to
We have vaccines to boost our immune response to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID. We have medicines you can take at home (and in hospital) to treat COVID. Now researchers… Read more »
November 24, 2022
Africa: Journalists Reporting On the Covid-19 Pandemic Relied On Research That Had Yet to Be Peer Reviewed
A story on gender inequity in scientific research industries. A deep dive into the daily rhythms of the immune system. A look at vaccine effectiveness for COVID-19 variants. These… Read more »
November 23, 2022
Africa: Just Because Someone Had Covid Before They Had a Heart Attack Doesn't Mean It Was the Cause
Last week ABC journalist and physician Norman Swan suggested the heart attacks of two high profile people over the past year were unlikely to be a coincidence. The suggestion was… Read more »
Africa: Long Covid Stigma May Encourage People to Hide the Condition
An estimated 2.1 million people are living with long COVID in the UK alone. We recently asked 888 people in the UK with long COVID about their experiences of stigma, and 95% of… Read more »
November 24, 2022
Africa: My Rapid Antigen Tests Are Negative but I Still Think I Might Have Covid. Should I Get a PCR Test?
You've been exposed to COVID and are starting to get symptoms. But after a couple of days of testing with rapid antigen tests (RATs), your tests remain negative. Read more »
November 21, 2022
Uganda: Ebola - Schools Were Closed for Two Years During Covid, Now They Face More Closures - Something Must Change
Children in Uganda missed out on more school because of the COVID pandemic than their peers anywhere else in the world. An estimated 15 million pupils in the East African nation… Read more »
Africa: Intellectual Property Waiver for Covid Vaccines Should Be Expanded to Include Treatments and Tests
Global inequities in access to COVID vaccines have turned out to be a "catastrophic moral failure", just as the World Health Organization warned they would in January 2021. Yet it… Read more »
Africa: Tested Positive to Covid? Go Easy On Yourself - Try Not to Rush Back to Work or Exercise
With COVID isolation rules largely gone, some people feel pressured to rush back to work, school, or other activities after testing positive to COVID. Read more »
November 14, 2022
Africa: 'Gain of Function' Research Can Create Experimental Viruses. It Should Be More Strictly Regulated - or Banned
The United Nations Environment Programme recently published a scientific review that looks at environmental threats and risks in light of the COVID pandemic. It analyses links… Read more »