Feature Stories

Reinforcing key health services amid COVID-19

Thousands of vaccinators fanned through villages and towns across 73 districts in Ghana, immunizing more than 4.6 million children against vaccine-derived poliovirus. Mass immunization campaigns, like many key health services, have suffered a heavy jolt dealt by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Talk radio, teletherapy expands mental health services in Ethiopia

The Erq Ma’ed – or ‘reconciliation table’ – social enterprise has mixed talk radio, communications and counselling to boost the mental health and wellbeing of Ethiopians for nearly a decade. With the added pressure due to the COVID-19 pandemic, their journey of innovation to meet people’s mental health needs amid unprecedented times has been further spurred on.

Fighting fake immunization travel certificates with frontier technologies

At the main bus terminus in Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital, travellers heading to neighbouring Zambia can be tempted by offers of counterfeit travel vaccination certificates. A thriving black market there sells a fake proof of immunization for between US$ 15–20, says Dr Integrity Mchechesi, who works with a technology firm to combat such forgery.

Innovating for health in Niger

Ibrahima Guimba Saidou, Nigerian Minister and Special Advisor to the president, and CEO of the National Agency of Information Society, is spearheading the country’s digital transformation. He speaks about the efforts being made to drive innovation in health.

Benin boosts COVID-19 response with increased testing

Cotonou – Benin’s first COVID-19 case was diagnosed at the Viral Haemorrhagic Fever Laboratory in the capital Cotonou in March 2020. Then it was the country’s sole facility able to test for the virus. At best it could carry out only 300 tests per day.

Testing at the core of Gabon’s COVID-19 battle

With over 60 sample collection sites, a network of laboratories, including a high-capacity one, Gabon has tested nearly a tenth of its 2 million people for COVID-19. Diagnosis has been expanded through mass testing and decentralization beyond the capital city.

Enhancing diagnosis to beat COVID-19 in Senegal

Senegal’s Institut Pasteur was one of only two laboratories in Africa able to test for COVID-19 at the onset of the pandemic in early 2020. The institution’s director, Dr Amadou Sall, speaks about the efforts Senegal has made to strengthen testing as well as the challenges faced.

Benin boosts COVID-19 response with increased testing

Benin’s first COVID-19 case was diagnosed at the Viral Haemorrhagic Fever Laboratory in the capital Cotonou in March 2020. Then it was the country’s sole facility able to test for the virus. At best it could carry out only 300 tests per day.

Battling COVID-19 in communities

Kampala – In a low-income suburb of Makindye, in the Ugandan capital, Hakim Kiggundu has gathered a group of around 30 people from the community near his home, under a tree in a clearing among the houses. In this tight-knit community of narrow mud roads and small wooden houses, people are used to living cheek-by-jowl, but now they are sitting on neatly-spaced white plastic chairs, a few metres apart.