Africa

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A woman cooks palm nuts to make oil on the road that connects Obuasi to Cape Coast, in Ghana, on July 26, 2019.

Heat Stress and Air Pollution Fuel Dementia in Ghana

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Ghana's aging population faces worsening cognitive health, including increased dementia risk, from pollution and high temperature

Tracking the "America First" Bilateral Health Agreements

Tracking the "America First" Bilateral Health Agreements

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Think Global Health's analysis found gaps between country needs and new cofinancing commitments with the United States

Genomic Medicine: A New Frontier for Health Care in Africa

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Building Africa's capacity for human genomic sequencing could improve cancer care, product development, and precision medicine

Seynabou Diop works at a station in a laboratory where the hantavirus genome was sequenced at Institut Pasteur, in Dakar, Senegal, on May 19, 2026.

Charting Ebola Responses: How 2026 Stacks Up After Aid Cuts

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An Ebola outbreak circulating undetected for weeks or months is a collective failure of global health security, regardless of cause

A map titled "Where the 2026 Ebola Outbreak is Spreading" shows confirmed and suspected cases of Bundibugyo virus disease in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Uganda as of June 1, 2026. Affected regions are shaded in salmon/orange-red, and affected cities are marked with black dots. Ituri Province in northeastern DRC is labeled as having seen the most cases and is the largest highlighted region. Additional affected areas in DRC include militia-controlled Goma in North Kivu and areas near Bukavu in South Kivu. In Uganda, Kampala is marked as having confirmed nine cases. A small inset map shows the location of the outbreak region within the broader African continent. Source: Ministry of Health, Democratic Republic of Congo.

How a UN Resolution Failed to Protect Sudan's Health Care

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Ten years after UNSC Resolution 2286 passed, a physician details how its shortcomings imperil Sudanese citizens and health workers

A view of a destroyed ward in Khartoum Hospital, in Khartoum, on Sudan April 26, 2025.

Sudan's Health Workers Adapt to Increasing Drone Attacks

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Health workers in El Fasher say escalating drone warfare spurs rapid medical innovation

Women pray in front of a house struck by a drone in El-Obeid, North Kordofan State, Sudan, on January 12, 2026.

How African Regional Agencies Can Shape Global Health Reform

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WHO Africa regional specialists explain why continental players need to be coauthors in the reform of global health architecture

World Health Organization officials and Ugandan health workers inform the community of Kirembo village about the ebola vaccine, in Kasese district, Uganda, on June 15, 2019.

Birth Registration to Improve Health Equity

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Millions of newborns lack birth certificates, but governments and investors have new opportunities to build digital identification

A newborn baby's inked feet are seen after his footprints were taken for the birth certificate, at the Santa Ana public maternity hospital, in Caracas, Venezuela, on October 19, 2011.

Global Health Reform for Communities Beyond Institutions

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Much of global health progress has been driven by small teams, writes the head of Expertise France's major pandemics cluster

Community health workers prepare vaccines for a measles vaccination drive amid a surge in cases, in San Cristobal de Las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico, on February 25, 2026.

How the Iran War Is Straining Humanitarian Aid, in Three Charts

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Aid organizations face meandering shipping routes and soaring fuel costs beyond the price of gasoline

Map titled “Shipping Aid in Wartime” showing how food shipments to Port Sudan are rerouted because of the Iran War. A solid dark line marks the typical route from Nhava Sheva, India, across the Arabian Sea, through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait and Red Sea, to Port Sudan, with labels for Salalah, Jeddah, Suez Canal, and Port Sudan. A dashed orange line shows the alternate route looping south across the Indian Ocean, around the Cape of Good Hope at Africa’s southern tip, and back up West Africa and the Mediterranean before reaching the Red Sea. A note on the map says ships avoiding the Bab-el-Mandeb take this longer route. Caption states that rerouting can add 6,000 miles and more than three weeks of transit time.

The Expanded Global Gag Rule and the Case for Regional Solidarity

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The anti-abortion policy undermines organizing principles, rooted in ubuntu, that keep African health systems coherent under stress

A woman gazes out of a window while attending a talk on sexual health and HIV prevention, in the Tanghin neighborhood of Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, on April 13, 2013.

Multilane Procurement Amid the America First Health Agenda

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Health procurement in low- and middle-income countries will remain unavoidably multilane. Donors should build around that reality

An Ethiopian Cargo terminal worker offloads a shipment of Johnson and Johnson's COVID-19 vaccines that arrived under the COVAX scheme, at the Bole International Airport, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on July 19, 2021.