|
The death toll from the current Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo is nearing 600. It remains out of control in North Kivu province despite vaccine trials. Yap Boum, Jean-Jacques Muyembe, Sabue Mulangu and Steve Mundeke Ahuka set out why science will only win the race against the virus if communities are fully part of the response.
South Africa’s Gauteng province – the country’s most prosperous - is in trouble. It has more than double the number of fast food outlets compared to healthy food outlets. With obesity-related diseases rapidly overtaking HIV as the top causes of death in the country Karen Hofman and Safura Abdool Karim explain why the government needs to urgently intervene to help promote healthy food environments.
Today is International Women’s Day. This year’s focus is on a gender-balanced world, celebrating women’s achievements and taking action against inequality. The strength of the movement has been mostly marked in developed countries. In developing countries, the campaign for women’s rights, and against pervasive inequalities, has taken on different forms. As Amanda Gouws explains, the fact that African women haven’t been prominent in the global movement shouldn’t obscure the fact that they’ve been engaged in powerful campaigns on the continent.
|
Health workers in Liberia at the height of the 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak.
Ahmed Jallanzo/EPA
Yap Boum, Mbarara University of Science and Technology; Jean-Jacques Muyembe, University of Kinshasa ; Sabue Mulangu, University of Kinshasa ; Steve Mundeke Ahuka, University of Kinshasa
Four new Ebola treatments are being tried out in the DRC.
|
Poorer South Africans are bombarded with fast food.
Shutterstock
Karen Hofman, University of the Witwatersrand; Safura Abdool Karim, University of the Witwatersrand
Fast-food outlets outnumber health food stores in South Africa's Gauteng province.
|
Politics + Society
|
Karl von Holdt, University of the Witwatersrand
Much deeper social forces underlie the struggles within the governing ANC and society over the shape of the economy.
| |
Olayinka Ajala, University of York
While the 2019 presidential election wasn't perfect, it showed that democracy is gradually being entrenched in Nigeria.
|
|
|
Women's Day
|
Amanda Gouws, Stellenbosch University
The visibility of #MeToo makes it easy to overlook the very powerful campaigns against sexual violence in Africa.
| |
Tolu Olarewaju, Staffordshire University
Nigeria, like many emerging countries, needs to educate its women at the same rate it does its men to enhance entrepreneurship.
|
Brenda Boonabaana, Makerere University; Amos Ochieng, Makerere University
Uganda's tourism ministry has launched a beauty pageant to use local women to attract tourists.
| |
Ella Tennant, Keele University
English is a language made by men, for men and it reinforces inequality.
|
|
|
From our international editions
|
Dr Annie Waqar, University of Westminster
A nuclear exchange, which would unleash untold destruction on both countries' civilian populations, remains a possibility.
| |
Allison Webel, Case Western Reserve University
Headlines around the world declared that a second person was cured of their HIV. But while the results are encouraging, we're a long way from a cure.
|
|
|
