Location: Africa

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Fortified and biofortified foods are at the forefront of efforts to combat vitamin A deficiency worldwide. But little is known about what influence processing may have on the retention of vitamin A precursors in these foods. Now in a study appearing in ACS Omega, scientists report that a high percentage of these healthful substances — in some cases, almost all — can survive cooking, depending on the preparation method.

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Conditions in crowded urban settlements in Africa make the effects of climate change worse, pushing temperatures to levels dangerous for children and the elderly in those areas.

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Richard Joseph, professor of political science and African Studies at Northwestern University, will give a talk on his work studying politics in Africa and why access to information is crucial to democratic governance.

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Using laboratory equipment readily available in developing countries, researchers from UNC and Abbott Diagnostics were able to define and map the burden of hepatitis C virus for the first time in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Their findings were published in Clinical Infectious Diseases.

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The men who were tried for their role in the 1994 Rwandan genocide that killed up to 1 million people want you to know that they’re actually very good people. That’s the most common way accused men try to account for their actions in testimony before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, a new study has found.

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The University of Portsmouth is helping to tackle air pollution and its harmful effects in Sub-Saharan Africa.

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Utilizing messages focused on images created by local artists and written information communicated through local dialects proved essential to counter misperceptions during the Ebola epidemic in Sierra Leone, according to a study conducted in part by Muriel J. Harris, Ph.D., associate professor, University of Louisville School of Public Health and Information Sciences, Department of Health Promotion and Behavior Sciences.

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Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai student leads first comprehensive analysis of African palliative care literature over past 12 years

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Working at a health center in rural Uganda, researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill demonstrated for the first time the potential of using a low-cost, routinely available rapid diagnostic test to distinguish between severe and uncomplicated malaria in children.

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Northern Congo’s notorious elephant poacher and ivory trafficker Daring Dissaka, 39, has been convicted and sentenced to five years imprisonment.

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The first aerial assessment of the impact of South Sudan’s current civil war on the country’s wildlife and other natural resources shows that significant wildlife populations have so far survived, but poaching and commercial wildlife trafficking are increasing, as well as illegal mining, timber harvesting and charcoal production, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) said in a report issued today.

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A University of California, Irvine study on the impact of environmental changes on malaria in sub-Saharan Africa has been awarded up to $9.6 million over seven years from the National Institute of Allergy & Infectious Diseases, a part of the National Institutes of Health.

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Statistical mapping technique shows widely dispersed population could pose challenges for initiative

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The American Sociological Association has sociologists available to discuss the latest news related to refugees, Muslims, and immigration.

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UofL donated surplus ophthalmic equipment to Friends Eye Center in Tamale, Ghana, allowing the center to better treat Ghanaian patients and train new physicians.

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In the late 1990s, the World Health Organization (WHO) issued a policy requiring the establishment of centralized blood banking facilities in Sub-Saharan African countries. Anthony Charles, MD, MPH, associate professor of surgery at the UNC School of Medicine, says that this policy is now having unintended negative consequences.

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Researchers have found iron deficiency anemia protects children against the blood-stage of Plasmodium falciparum malaria in Africa, and treating anemia with iron supplementation removes this protective effect.

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Experts at the University of Birmingham are launching an interdisciplinary project called CreativeDrought to prepare rural communities in Africa for possible future drought by combining local knowledge with environmental science.

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Researchers conducted a cross-sectional chart review of 1,085 patients older than 18 who presented to the KATH emergency department within eight hours of an injury and found 382 subjects, or 35 percent, tested positive for any level of alcohol in their systems.

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Building panels made of upcycled coconut husks made a statement at the Chalewote Street Art Festival in Accra, Ghana, this summer. A kiosk constructed of the panels was featured in an online video report by MeshTV in Ghana.“People have been amazed that coconut (husk), which is a material they think they know, can be used as a structural material, a brick, something that feels stronger than plywood, something that has resistance and strength,” Demetrios Comodromos told MeshTV.

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Paul G. Allen’s Vulcan Inc. today announced the results of the $7 million, three-year Great Elephant Census, the first-ever pan-African survey of savanna elephants using standardized data collection and validation methods. The researchers report that the current rate of species decline is 8 percent per year, primarily due to poaching.

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Tuberculosis (TB) is the leading cause of death worldwide among people infected with HIV. But as yet, no test can reliably show when latent (inactive) TB infections in people with HIV starts progressing to active—and potentially fatal—TB disease. Now, a researcher at Albert Einstein College of Medicine has received a five-year, $3.7 million National Institutes of Health grant to identify biomarkers that signal an increase in activity by Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), the bacterium that causes TB, in people with HIV.

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People in Africa’s Sub-Sahara region, a relatively undeveloped area, are generally satisfied with their sex lives, with the most common rating — reported by 18 percent of respondents — being a perfect “10,” according to Baylor University research.

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Exposure to airborne dust and high temperatures are significant risk factors for bacterial meningitis, a new study by the University of Liverpool's Institute of Infection and Global Health has found.

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In the post-apartheid years, the South African Public Service has been transformed into a broadly representative institution. New research indicates that such a change can also foster more effective government.

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Each year, influenza causes between 250,000 and half a million deaths around the world. Now a new study has shown that immunizing mothers against flu can decrease by 70 percent the risk of their infants getting flu during the first four months after birth. This is the largest study so far to show that maternal vaccination against flu is feasible and effective in resource-poor environments.

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Archaeologists studying the distribution of ancient rice believe they may be close to solving one of the enduring mysteries of the ancient world - how people of South East Asian origin ended up living on the African island of Madagascar, 6,000 km away.

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To train future HIV researchers, the University at Buffalo and University of Zimbabwe have partnered to form the HIV Research Training Program, supported by a $1.3 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) John E. Fogarty International Center.

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New bioarchaeological evidence shows that Nubians and Egyptians integrated into a community, and even married, in ancient Sudan, according to new research from a Purdue University anthropologist.

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The Crop Science Society of America (CSSA) sent ten students to the PanAfrican Legume Conference and World Cowpea Conference in Livingstone, Zambia. CSSA is celebrating the International Year of Pulses (IYP) to promote pulses -- crops of dry beans, peas, and lentils.

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Part of the Middle East and North Africa may become uninhabitable due to climate change.

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Ebola virus samples taken from patients in Liberia in June 2015 are strikingly similar in their genetic makeup to other Ebola virus sequences from Western Africa, according to research published online today in the journal Science Advances. The study sheds light on several aspects of the "flare-ups" that have occurred in Liberia since the country was initially declared free of Ebola virus disease.

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URI President David M. Dooley visits the University of Cape Coast in Ghana to discuss ongoing collaboration between the two institutions and student exchange programs.

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The number one killer of HIV patients in resource-limited areas, including parts of Africa and India, is tuberculosis (TB), underscoring the need for optimal treatments and effective strategies to address this deadly co-infection. But TB is harder to detect in HIV-infected patients and diagnostic test results take time, so many healthcare providers prescribe multi-drug TB treatments as a precaution. However, for the first time, findings from a large, randomized clinical trial show that this aggressive approach does not save more lives, researchers from Penn Medicine and other institutions report in The Lancet.

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Rapid testing for the Zika virus is a critical need in the recent Ebola-affected countries of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, says a Georgetown University professor, because of the recent Zika outbreak on nearby Cape Verde and the similarity in symptoms between Zika and early Ebola.

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Worldwide, an estimated 25 percent of children under age 5 suffer from stunted growth and development. A team of researchers has found that inadequate dietary intake of essential amino acids and the nutrient choline is linked to stunting.

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Agricultural policies aimed at alleviating poverty in Africa could be making things worse, according to research by the University of East Anglia (UEA).

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A UCSB historian’s new book reveals the role of music in the subjugation and liberation of African culture.

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While academic awareness of African peoples' hunting with poison-tipped arrows extends back for centuries, knowledge of the ingenious practice has been scattered among chemistry, entomology and anthropology texts.

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When South Africa’s brutal and racially oppressive policies of apartheid came to a close in 1994, it was promised by Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress party that as much as 30 percent of land seized from native farmers by white landowners would be returned to them within 10 years. It didn’t come close.

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n sub-Saharan Africa, dozens of major 'development corridors,' including roads, railroads, pipelines, and port facilities, are in the works to increase agricultural production, mineral exports, and economic integration. And, if all goes according to plan, it's going to be a disaster, say researchers reporting in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on Nov. 25.

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