Feature Stories

Lagos – Comfort Ajayi, a mother of three and resident of Lagos state says she is keenly observing hygiene and taking steps to protect her family from cholera, which has been reported in all the 20 localities of Nigeria’s second most populous state. “In this critical time, I am also guiding my children on how to live responsibly,” she says. 

Brazzaville - Mavie Ndama is a phlebotomist at the National Blood Transfusion Centre in Brazzaville, the Republic of the Congo. She has spent years working at blood donation drives and transfusion stations, drawing blood from countless donors. Yet, despite her vital role in the blood donation process, she had never found the courage to donate blood herself.

Monrovia – Alpha Tamba’s blood donation journey began in 2002, as a refugee residing in Kountaya camp in Guinea during the civil war in his home country Liberia, where he witnessed the devastating consequences of blood shortages. 

Mbabane – Marcia Motsa, a human-resources professional and mother of two, from Manzini, Eswatini, started her journey with blood donation during high school, when the local blood bank visited and provided detailed information about the process. Although she stopped donating after school as work and family shifted her focus, in 2023 her commitment was reignited by a presentation given by the Ministry of Health at her workplace. 

Dar es Salam – “I remember hearing the news that I was infected with Marburg like it happened yesterday. It was one of the most challenging periods for me,” recalls Dr Mahona Jumanne Ndulu, who works at Bukoba Regional Referral Hospital in Tanzania’s Kagera region in the north. 

A year since the Marburg Virus Disease (Marburg) outbreak in Tanzania was declared over in June 2023, memories of the disease, which was controlled in a record 90 days, remain fresh in the minds of survivors.

Nouakchott – Ifrah, 36, started smoking at just 13 years of age and never thought he would ever quit. Smoking was common in his home neighbourhood of Cansado in Nouadhibou, Mauritania, and he simply followed by example. “For me, smoking meant being trendy and mature. But that was just an illusion,” he says.

Pretoria ‒ Tobacco consumption in Africa presents complex public health, economic and environmental challenges and requires a multisectoral approach to prevention and control. Professor Lekan Ayo-Yusuf of the Africa Centre for Tobacco Industry Monitoring and Policy Research (ATIM) at the University of Pretoria discusses tobacco control measures in Africa. 

Lilongwe ‒ Shombe Banda from Kasungu District in Central Malawi was a tobacco farmer for 35 years. He recently switched to growing other crops, such as soya beans, groundnuts and maize. His motivation to change was mostly economic, he says.