Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Uganda is facing a looming shortage of essential medicines as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Pharmacists across Kampala say that the country is already facing a shortage of drugs for the treatment of chronic illnesses like asthma and diabetes, among others. The development …
Read More »Doctors’ beliefs and treatment
A doctor’s display of confidence in a treatment may make it more effective | THE INDEPENDENT | New research finds that the placebo effect may be socially contagious. In other words, a doctor’s beliefs about whether or not a pain treatment will work can exert a subtle influence on how …
Read More »Four years without Sophia
On Monday August 31, 2015, Sophia Koetsier arrives at Entebbe airport in Uganda. She is 21 years old, bright and ambitious, with a great zest for life, about to embark on a new adventure in a faraway country, on a continent she has never been to. That summer she had acquired …
Read More »VIDEO: Stealing from the sick
VIDEO: Stealing from the sick – Full documentary – BBC Africa Eye Kampala, Uganda | BBC VIDEOS | Everyone in Uganda is entitled to free medicine to combat killer diseases like malaria. Despite Government efforts to improve access to essential medicines, a significant number of people have to use private facilities …
Read More »Referral hospitals want NMS monopoly broken
Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The authorities of various regional referral hospitals want the monopoly of National Medical Stores to procure and supply medicine broken, according to the Public Accounts Committee Chairperson, Nathan Nandala Mafabi. He disclosed this on Tuesday as his committee was finalizing its engagements with National …
Read More »Food, medicine, water: What has Nature done for us lately?
Paris, France | AFP | From the food we eat to the air that we breathe, Nature not only provides mankind with the means to live but also the services to thrive. Ahead of a major biodiversity summit in Paris expected to outline in the starkest terms yet the threat …
Read More »Electricity is creating new hope in medicine
A radical new approach to treating disease Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | When your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. This saying is particularly apt in medicine where doctors treat nearly every condition–from depression to hypertension–with a pill. If your doctor prescribed you anything other …
Read More »Face-to-face with medicine smugglers of the DR Congo
Uncovering the underworld of how Uganda’s marked medicines are stolen and sold Kampala, Uganda | FLAVIA NASSAKA | We have been waiting for close to two hours when a man emerges from a nearby thicket with water from the afternoon drizzle dripping like white beads off his very dark face and …
Read More »Japan to trial ‘world’s first urine test’ to spot cancer
Tokyo, Japan | AFP | A Japanese firm is poised to carry out what it hailed as the world’s first experiment to test for cancer using urine samples, which would greatly facilitate screening for the deadly disease. Engineering and IT conglomerate Hitachi developed the basic technology to detect breast or …
Read More »UN’s health body urges Hepatitis C offensive
2500, France | AFP | Hepatitis C is easily cured. Yet, about 400,000 people die of the liver disease every year as only a smattering get the medicine they need. On Friday, the World Health Organization (WHO) urged governments to attack the problem with more urgency, and more money. Only …
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