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African Health Sciences, Vol. 5, No. 3, September, 2005, pp. 171 Editorial James K Tumwine Editor in chief Code Number: hs05031 I welcome you to this bumper issue of African Health Sciences. We have an exciting selection of papers from all over Africa from as far as Tunisia, South Africa, Nigeria, Botswana, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)! In their paper on attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder, Kashala and colleagues describe the prevalence and determinants of the disorder among school children in Kinshasa the capital of the DRC. The prevalence was 6% but these authors did not find the risk factors described in the western literature. Several papers report innovative work on HIV/AIDS. For example Adedigba and colleagues report gender differences among health workers in caring for HIV/AIDS patients in Osun state, Nigeria, while Langen reports gender power imbalance on women’s capacity to negotiate self protection against HIV/AIDS in Botswana and South Africa. They found that women with older spouses, those economically dependent on their partners and the abused, were less likely to suggest condom use to their partners an issue that is definitely food for thought given the disturbing world wide shift from the triple strategy of Abstinence, Faithfulness and Condom use (the so called ABC) to over emphasis on abstinence for the control of HIV/AIDS. An interesting quote gives you glimpse on Langen’s findings: ‘he would kill me if I were to talk to him about condoms; and our religion/culture does not allow us to use condoms.’ Still on the theme of HIV/AIDS Smit and others from South Africa report on socio- behaviour challenges to phase III HIV vaccine trials, while Meel reports on the incidence of HIV infection at the time of incident reporting, in victims of sexual assault in Transkei, South Africa. In another study from South Africa, Doherty and colleagues report on health system constraints to optimal coverage of the prevention of mother to child HIV transmission. These included low rates of HIV test acceptance, poor delivery of nevirapine to mothers and inability to track mothers and their infants. The paper by Lubega and others from Uganda describes the prevalence and clinical presentation of heart disease among children with HIV infection in Uganda. They found that heart abnormalities were fairly common especially amongst children with AIDS. The rest of the papers cover such diverse subjects as oral diseases, Helicobacter pylori and histopathological changes in a population with high prevalence of stomach cancer, and the relationship between malaria and rainfall pattern in Entebbe, Uganda. The paper by Julia Royall and colleagues examines the use of MIMcom supported information technology by scientists, students, and admin staff to facilitate communication, retrieve information write proposals and publish papers. The authors conclude that this support has increased visibility of the scientists, and provided opportunities for stronger engagement with the international scientific community. We publish one practice points paper on the natural history and epidemiology of post transplantation diabetes mellitus, and several case reports on: extremity haemangiopericytoma, ruptured false iliac artery aneurysm and subtotal amelia in a child with autosomal recessive hypohidrotic ectodermal dsyplasia. Finally I wish to thank all our authors, reviewers, editorial staff and consultants, well wishers and readers for the enormous support you have been giving the journal. Without you the journal would not have reached the heights it has reached. Thank you very much your enormous support. Please keep it up. If you enjoy reading African Health Sciences tell a friend about it. Thank you very much once again and have nice reading. Copyright © 2005 - Makerere Medical School, Uganda |
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