Health

According to the World Health
Organisation, female genital mutilation (FGM) affects 140 million women worldwide, with the majority of the cases occurring in Africa and the Middle East. How to defeat this harmful practice was the main focus of an international conference held in London, reports Mercy Eze.

African scientists and policymakers should familiarise themselves with the body of literature that demonstrates the contradictions, anomalies and inconsistencies in the conventional view of Aids, writes Prof. Charles Geshekter in this review of two new and controversial books on “African Aids”.

A new system to fight counterfeit medicines that kill hundreds of thousands of people a year has hit the buffers in Ghana, mPedigree Network’s Bright Simons explains.
Stephen Gyasi Jnr reports from Accra.

Dr Peter Piot, the clinical microbiologist and former executive director of UNAIDS, has written a memoir that is sure to reignite the Aids debate. But despite the controversies, there is now hope: “mortality from Aids has declined dramatically in just about every country”.

African governments and civil society must demonstrate political leadership by collectively defining their own journey in their response to HIV-Aids and demand that their development partners support that vision. Now is the time for change, argue President Yayi Boni, chairperson of the African Union and president of Benin, and Michel Sidibé, executive director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS in this opinion piece.

After two decades of HIV running riot in Africa, the continent now appears to be getting on top of it. This was revealed by Dr Michel Sidibé, the executive director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/Aids (UNAIDS) in an interview with New African’s editor, Baffour Ankomah.

Tedros Adhanon Ghebreyesus, Ethiopia’s minister of health, is a star amongst health practitioners. This softly-spoken man was Melinda Gates’ choice in Wired magazine’s list of “50 people who will change the world in 2012”. He has been at the forefront of the national effort to transform health care delivery. New African interviewed him in Addis Ababa.

Just as the world’s economic centre of gravity is shifting North to South and West to East, and as traditional donors deal with a financial crisis that is impacting their aid assistance to Africa, the BRICS nations are developing a new focus on global health issues.