Good news!
Only the second female leader of an Arab nation ever!
Showing posts with label Africa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Africa. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 29, 2026
Morocco Appoints First Female Prime Minister Fatima Ezzahra El Mansouri
Monday, September 28, 2026
Saturday, September 26, 2026
Something Is Wrong With South Africa | South African Crisis Explained
This looks really bad! Did black South Africans ruin the country?
Friday, September 25, 2026
Thursday, September 24, 2026
Tuesday, September 22, 2026
Beating The Resource Curse?: Somalia Confirms Uranium, Lithium & Cobalt Deposits
Good news! Now the country needs more internal stability and less war fighting.
Wednesday, September 16, 2026
Wild dogs make the longest recorded journey of any terrestrial mammal in Africa
Amazing stuff!
"... Researchers from the Zambian Carnivore Programme and Montana State University wanted to understand how this endangered predator navigates human-dominated landscapes to better help with conservation efforts. So they tracked groups of wild dogs in Zambia after they separated from their packs.
In doing so, they recorded a record-breaking journey. Three of the dogs traveled a staggering 4,126 kilometers (2,564 miles) across the country, the longest journey ever recorded for an African land mammal. ..."
Extraordinary movements connecting distant ecosystems by African wild dogs (Lycaon pictus) (open access)
African wild dog (Lycaon pictus) in the Okavango Delta, Botswana.
Monday, September 14, 2026
Saturday, September 12, 2026
Friday, September 11, 2026
'We Believe In Ourselves': Traore Launches New $30 Mn Burkina Faso Textile Hub
Recommendable! Maybe strongman tactics! Nationalization of foreign companies is also questionable.
Somali Pirates continue Hijackings of vessels since April 2026 of at least 8 vessels
Another reason why crude oil prices are so high!
Where are the coward European powers when you need them! These pirates e.g. should be arrested and subjected to martial law by the European powers!
"Somali pirates have hijacked at least four international commercial vessels off the coast of northern Somalia’s Puntland state during this period, including two in mid-August.
Three of the vessels were fuel tankers, while the other ... was a cargo ship reportedly carrying Turkish military equipment. Suspected Somali pirates have also attempted at least four additional hijackings since May, according to the UN International Maritime Organization. ...
This level of piracy has not occurred since the peak of Somali piracy over a decade ago. Somali pirates averaged 33 hijackings annually from 2005 to 2011 and conducted 15 hijackings in 2012. ..."
Wednesday, September 09, 2026
Why Kenya Is Turning Against Foreign Workers And Businesses with Palki Sharma
Bad news! They are asked to leave, because the economy is not doing well.
Friday, September 04, 2026
Uganda: Museveni Enters Global Oil Game with 'Pearl Sweet Crude'
Good news! Soon Uganda will be the biggest oil producer in east Africa! Peak oil was always a hoax!
Wednesday, September 02, 2026
Abiy's $475MN Nile Boom!: Ethiopia's GERD Exports Hydropower Across Africa
Recommendable! However, downstream Egypt is not happy!
Image of the day
No breast reconstruction after mastectomy? Just a scar?
Was a total mastectomy even necessary in her case?
Credits: Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health: Global Health NOW
Nearly half of the world’s farmers suffer unintentional, acute pesticide poisoning every year. Really!
Serious stuff, if confirmed! I have some serious doubts about this claim! My hunch is we are dealing here with junk journalism and junk science.
The study was reportedly commissioned by the NGO Pesticide Action Network?
Notice these poisoning numbers are based on estimates (extrapolation?) not hard data! From about 370,000 actually reported cases, they come up with over 400 million cases estimate! This is a serious jump!
Notice they refer to farmers, but the hard data appears to be all people not just farmers! The abstract of the research article does not mention how many farmers were actually poisoned!
Notice also the use of "non fetal" in this context! How serious were these poisonings?
Notice the research article is primarily a meta study of research articles.
"... with southern Asia, southeast Asia, and East Africa most affected, finds a study published yesterday in Frontiers in Public Health, which also estimated 11,000 annual deaths from pesticide poisoning; the authors say immediate action is required to reduce pesticide use, which doubled from 1990 to 2023. ..."
"... The overall highest national incidence of poisoning was in Burkina Faso in west Africa, where nearly 84% of farmers and farm workers were reported to have experienced poisoning. ..."
From the abstract:
"Background:
Human poisoning by pesticides has long been seen as a severe public health problem.
As early as 1990, a task force of the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that about one million unintentional pesticide poisonings occur annually, leading to approximately 20,000 deaths.
In 2020, a systematic review found that about 385 million cases of unintentional, acute pesticide poisoning (UAPP) were occurring every year.
Our aim is to update the annual global estimate of UAPP, based on a systematic review of available data.
Methods:
We updated the existing systematic review of the scientific literature to include the period from 2006 to 2023 supplemented by mortality data from WHO.
We extracted data from publications and the WHO Mortality Database, then performed country-wise synopses, and arrived at annual numbers of national UAPP. World-wide UAPP was estimated based on national figures and population data for worldwide regions. We conducted a sensitivity analysis to illustrate the effects of different study designs on the global estimate.
Results:
In total 139 countries were covered, including 62 countries covered by 214 articles from 2006 to 2023, and an additional 77 countries covered by data from the WHO Mortality Database.
Approximately 369,632 annual cases of UAPP were reported by the extracted publications, resulting from 9,182 fatalities and 360,450 non-fatal cases.
On this basis, we estimate that about 402 to 433 million cases of UAPP occur annually worldwide, including around 11,000 fatalities.
Based on a worldwide farming population of approximately 934 million, this means that an estimated 46% of farmers are being poisoned by pesticides every year.
The greatest estimated number of non-fatal UAPP cases is in southern Asia, followed by south-eastern Asia and east Africa.
Conclusion:
Along with other estimates, robust evidence is presented that acute pesticide poisoning is an ongoing major global public health challenge.
There is an urgent need to recognize the high burden of non-fatal UAPP, particularly on farmers and farmworkers. The implementation of the recommendation by the Council of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), to phase out highly hazardous pesticides (HHPs) could significantly reduce the burden of UAPP."
Almost half of world’s farmers poisoned by pesticides every year, experts find "Study reveals that pesticide poisoning kills 11,000 people each year, with India accounting for nearly 60% of fatalities"
Worldwide unintentional acute pesticide poisonings: reassessing the occupational and non-occupational burden (open access)
Notice that French language articles were not included and medical/clinical outcomes of these poisonings.
Fig. 2 Number (x 1,000) of non-fatal untentional pesticide poisonings in UN Regions (total = 433 million).
Tuesday, September 01, 2026
Lesotho recruits male midwives
Good news! Bravo! So much for gender equality in Africa!
"As Lesotho health officials aim to lower the country’s maternal mortality rate, they are recruiting more men into a vital role usually left to women: midwifery.
~300 male midwives now provide care across the country, often traversing wide rural regions to assist underserved communities.
Stark care gaps: In Lesotho, ~530 women die for every 100,000 live births—more than 2X the global average. ..."
Midwife Sehloho Ntlhane leans over a pregnant patient and uses a Pinard horn to listen to the baby’s heartbeat during a prenatal exam at Mpharane Health Center, Lesotho, on July 10, 2026. (Source)
Monday, August 31, 2026
Friday, August 28, 2026
How to train and retain medical staff in Africa
Bad news! Serious stuff!
"Africa's health workforce crisis isn't just about training too few workers—it's about retaining those already trained. The region faces a shortage of 5.85 million health workers by 2030, per a WHO report.
Yet roughly 30% of trained health professionals in the report’s nine-country sample are unemployed—nearly one million people continent-wide—while systems remain understaffed ... They argue that these shortcomings stem from historic reliance on training specialists abroad, where many stayed permanently or struggled to reintegrate into under-resourced home systems.
Nearly half of African health workers say they'd leave given the chance. ..."
"... We have also seen promising results from a different training model.
Ethiopia hosts one strand of the Pediatric Anesthesia Training for Africa (PATA) fellowship, which trains anesthesiologists to specialize in children’s care—in Africa, for Africa. PATA began at the University of Nairobi in 2022, then expanded.
Over time, two Ethiopian anesthesiologists trained at a PATA site in Nairobi, Kenya, then returned and helped build a fellowship of their own. PATA graduates now serve as faculty teaching Ethiopia’s first cohort.
Local training prepares professionals to succeed within the realities of local healthcare systems, and it builds a compelling community of practice that is “sticky” enough to support retention. That community is growing fast. PATA now runs across five countries, Zambia, Uganda, Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Kenya. So far, it has graduated 32 pediatric anesthesiologists from eight countries who now serve a total population of roughly 598 million people.
Retention has been essentially 100%: Of the 32 graduates, only two have relocated, and both stayed within Africa.
Similar training programs can be found at the West African College of Surgeons, the University of Nairobi, and Cape Town’s Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital, among others–—collectively marking a broader continental shift: training pediatric surgical specialists on the continent, for the continent. ..."
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