In the news this week on Health in Africa

Today in South Africa a mobile clinic project targeted at people living in areas with limited access to medical care took off.
Philips South Africa in collaboration with Rhiza foundation are the founders of this initiative, as well as Nozala trust and the Industrial development corporation.
It is meant to deliver basic health care services to South African communities in Northern Johannesburg, particularly targeting Diepsloot, Cosmo City and Orange Farm.

This clinic on wheels operates from inside of a truck to deliver a wide range of services, some of which include : primary health care services, education and counselling. There are two main sections in the truck: the maternal and child care section and a dental care section.

The project is aimed at reducing the maternal and infant mortality rates in South Africa, especially deaths from pregnancy complications that could have been avoided.


Yesterday, the World Bank Group in conjunction with PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases launched a group of peer-reviewed articles about the story surrounding the history, control and near eradication of river blindness (onchocerciasis) in Africa. It formerly, was endemic in about 31 African countries. The success story began  in 1974 with the Onchocerciasis Control Program (OCP), and later became the African Program for Onchocerciasis Control (APOC) in 1995.

Today, onchocerciasis related blindness is no longer a public health issue in most of the said African countries. This Partnership, impacts greater than 100 million people yearly across the continent of Africa in a bid to keep the disease under control.

This publication is titled "40 Years of the APOC Partnership," and coincides with the 41st anniversary of one of the most successful Private-Public-Partnership for health in Africa. The partnership is one of a kind as it involves a wide range of financial, scientific and operational donors. A private sector drug donation partner played an important role in making this a reality as well as a network of 15 NGOs.


There has been a sustained decline in the number of new Ebola cases in Guinea and Sierra Leone.
A total of 9 new cases were recorded in the two nations over the past week. This is the lowest since the epidemic began last year. 7 of the cases were from Guinea, while 2 were from Sierra Leone.
The WHO has maintained a close watch over Liberia and will continue to be present till the end of 2015.

28 children in Niger state Nigeria were allegedly killed by lead poisoning on Tuesday. This was said to have occurred as a result of illegal mining activities in the area. 65 children were affected, out of which 28 of them had expired as of the 12th of May. All the 28 children were under the age of 5.

A 3 day conference on mobile health in Africa began on Wednesday in Malawi. It is being hosted by USAID and the Malawi ministry of health.
Discussions are centred on the use of mobile technologies to improve maternal and child health.

A new kind of epidemic has been discovered to have been silently raging in Africa and Asia for some years now; the "Drug resistant typhoid" and it has been tagged "an invisible epidemic."  A particular multi drug resistant strain of Salmonella Typhi, the organism responsible for Typhoid fever has been identified. It has been shown to be resistant to the newer antibiotics such as Ciprofloxacin and azithromycin. In Africa alone as many as 21 million people are infected yearly and there is an estimated death toll of 216,000 to 600,000. (WHO)