Feature Stories

Namudu Kareen*, 30, an anti-tobacco advocate in Uganda, was forced to face up to the impact of smoking on her health when her damaged lungs could not supply the necessary oxygen she needed after undergoing surgery in 2020. She needed a ventilator, a machine to help her breathe. The eldest of five children, she stopped smoking a year later and committed to encouraging others to follow suit.

Attending a health centre was an “unattainable luxury” after the Batsirai and Emnati cyclones hit Madagascar’s south-eastern Vatovavy region in February 2022, cutting off any access to care for Toky Rabemaharo and his community.

Challenged by high cholesterol levels and hypertension, and later diabetes, 58-year-old Mola Admassie says his life has significantly changed thanks to the availability of noncommunicable disease services at the health centre 600 metres from his home.

In Guinea, around 30 health centres offer free cervical cancer screening services, giving thousands of women the chance of early detection of the disease, and appropriate treatment.

Hammanskraal resident Tebogo Hlongwane was terrified when she took her three-year-old son, Agisang, to the emergency room at Jubilee District Hospital.

"My husband was against contraceptive," recalls Aïssa*. She recently gave birth to triplets. She has four older children, the youngest barely two years old. "Since the triplets, the financial burden has grown so much that it's been easier to persuade him," she adds.

With its mountainous terrain and use of donkeys and horses as primary modes of transport, Berea Hospital nurse Sello Ramakanate says the consequent high incidence of traumatic brain injuries in Lesotho is compounded by limited critical care, pushing up deaths rates.

Ebola survivor Randall Varney lost nine family members, including his parents and seven siblings, to the virus in just three months in 2014, before himself contracting the disease. After learning that he could still sexually transmit the virus up to 90 days after recovery, he resolved to do everything possible to ensure the safety of his wife.

Teresa Ramos de Carvalho’s long struggle with hypertension and diabetes has turned around since she began attending regular consultations and receiving her medication free of charge at her local health facility in São Domingos in the central area of Cabo Verde.

In the remote Nigerian village of Bororo-Kambari, five-year-old Fati Isah and her two siblings are lining up with other children their age and younger, preparing to be vaccinated against polio. “My mother says immunization is important and we should receive the vaccine,” she says proudly.