HEALTH - The African Mirror

Nov

19

2024

Mosquito season in southern Africa: tonic water and vitamins won’t protect you, but knowing where the hotspots are will

HEALTH

WHILE the emergence of colourful butterflies is a welcome sign of summer, the constant buzzing of mosquitoes is an annoying part of the season. Mosquitoes are more than just pests. They are the world’s most dangerous animals. Their presence signals the start of the malaria season in southern Africa. It is for this reason that the Southern African Development Community recognises the first week of November as SADC Malaria Week, with 6 November as SADC Malaria Day. During this week the dangers of malaria are highlighted. As South Africa edges closer towards malaria elimination, this has become more important as…

Nov

16

2024

By MAJA JAKARASI

Colonial powers tried to stifle traditional healing in Zimbabwe. They failed and today it’s a powerful force for treating mental illness

HEALTH

IN Zimbabwe’s Shona language, mental illness is known as chirwere chepfungwa or kupenga. Before British colonial settlers arrived in 1890, traditional healers (n’anga) played an important role in helping people manage their mental and physical health. But, from the late 19th to the mid-20th century, the British colonisers, particularly Christian missionaries, cracked down on the work of the n’anga. They insisted that communities should abandon their traditional beliefs and healing practices. Instead, people were cajoled and threatened to embrace western biomedicine, relying on its psychiatric and psychological methods to treat mental illness. The British government of what was then Rhodesia…

Nov

15

2024

By CLEMENT MESEKO

Which animals carry mpox? Our study identified African forest dwelling rodents as one source

HEALTH

MPOX is a disease caused by the highly infectious monkeypox virus. It’s quite easily passed on from one person to another. But it originally came from infected animals. The virus was discovered in 1958 when two outbreaks of pox-like infection were seen in monkeys shipped from Singapore to Denmark for research. Studies since then, however, has shown that monkeys are not the natural host (reservoir) of the virus. This idea was dropped in the 1970s when cases in humans were seen in west and central Africa. In 1979 a large-scale survey of 43 species of animals revealed further evidence of…

Nov

12

2024

By FATHIYA KHAMIS

Plastic-eating insect discovered in Kenya

HEALTH

THERE’S been an exciting new discovery in the fight against plastic pollution: mealworm larvae that are capable of consuming polystyrene. They join the ranks of a small group of insects that have been found to be capable of breaking the polluting plastic down, though this is the first time that an insect species native to Africa has been found to do this. Polystyrene, commonly known as styrofoam, is a plastic material that’s widely used in food, electronic and industrial packaging. It’s difficult to break down and therefore durable. Traditional recycling methods – like chemical and thermal processing – are expensive…

Nov

09

2024

By OKECH FRANCIS

Reporter’s diary: The struggle for survival for South Sudanese returnees

HEALTH

This story was originally published by The New Humanitarian.By Okech Francis THERE is no questioning the terrible suffering that South Sudanese citizens living in war-torn Sudan have endured over the past year and half – the extreme hunger, the killings, the horrible reports of sexual violence. Yet for many of the more than 600,000 who have now escaped the war and returned back to South Sudan, the sad truth is that their situation here is almost as dire as the one they left behind. “Everyone here struggles for survival on their own, and you cannot expect any support since life…

Nov

08

2024

By STEVEN LAM and DELIA GRACE

Stopping mpox: wild meat markets are a root cause and must be made safer

HEALTH

IN many countries around the world, wild animals are sometimes killed for food, including monkeys, rats and squirrels. Wild meat makes significant contributions to nutrition in Africa and to satisfying food preferences in Asia. In Africa, the annual harvest of wild meat, estimated at between 1 million and 5 million metric tonnes, is substantial compared to the continent’s livestock production of about 14 million metric tonnes per year. Public health researchers have long highlighted unhygienic wild meat practices as potentially harmful due to the risk of pathogens jumping from animals to humans, especially through close contact during hunting, processing or…

Nov

01

2024

By TOM NYIRENDA

TB in Africa: global report shows successes, but Nigeria and DRC remain important hotspots

HEALTH

THE World Health Organization’s 2024 Global Tuberculosis report reveals a sobering reality. Formidable challenges remain in the fight against the world’s most infectious disease: persistent poverty in high-burden countries; increased rates of infection among vulnerable populations; the inability to find and treat all missing cases; and funding shortfalls. The WHO’s report measures progress in two ways: the number of TB-related deaths, and the number of people who become ill. There is still a long battle ahead to eradicate a disease that results in over 10 million patients among those already infected and claims around 1.5 million lives each year. This…

Oct

28

2024

By RAQUEL AB DUARTE; CAROLINE DICKENS and THERESE DIX-PEEK

Breast cancer in Africa: myths that need to be debunked

HEALTH

THERE are many myths about breast cancer, particularly in Africa with its rich diversity of people, different genetic backgrounds and ancestral histories. An advertising campaign from the US, for example, asserts that 1 in every 8 women will develop breast cancer during their lifetime. This statistic has pervaded the rest of the world, where it is accepted as fact. But in sub-Saharan Africa, the lifetime risk of a woman developing breast cancer is much lower. In South Africa, for example, the lifetime risk of a black woman developing breast cancer is 1 in 43. Breast cancer is still one of…

Oct

26

2024

By The African Mirror

Raising awareness about testicular cancer

HEALTH

TESTICULAR cancer is the most common cancer affecting males between the ages of 15 and 49¹, impacting approximately¹ in 250 males². The average age of men diagnosed with testicular cancer is 33². Testicular cancer occurs when one of the many kinds of testicular cells multiply uncontrollably, forming a mass in one or both testicles¹. The most common cancer signs and symptoms in the testicles and scrotum include lumps, swelling and pain, although cancer is only one of the possible causes of these types of testicular symptoms¹. While testicular cancer cannot be prevented, regular testicular self-examinations are vital to becoming familiar…

Oct

23

2024

By ANNA-MART ENGELBRECHT

Breast cancer: why it’s difficult to treat and what new approaches are on the horizon

HEALTH

BREAST cancer is the number one cancer among women: more than 2 million cases were diagnosed worldwide in 2022. It is also particularly challenging to treat. Physiologist Anna-Mart Engelbrecht, who heads the Cancer Research Group at Stellenbosch University, explains why this is so and how precision medicine could help. How do tumours work? Normally, cell growth, cell division and cell death are tightly regulated processes. But mutations in a cell’s DNA can disrupt this regulation, leading to abnormal cell proliferation, and forming tumours. Tumours can be benign (non-cancerous) or malignant (cancerous). Malignant tumours are dangerous because they invade surrounding tissues…