Short Form

Walking on the road in Accra can be dangerous, say researchers. Using a cellphone while doing so can up the chance for an accident even more. Here’s what a study found should be done to keep pedestrians safe.

Abigail Olivier’s* mother was angry at the father of her child. So she made sure that he couldn’t have a relationship with his daughter. As an adult, Olivier realised it could be a case of what some experts call parental alienation.

Parents embroiled in custody disputes can turn on each other — and use their children as pawns in their battle. But claims of parental alienation are controversial and difficult to prove. In the end both children and parents lose.

It’s been eleven years since Zine Konwayo was first diagnosed with tuberculosis, but she is still dealing with the fallout of the disease. Not only has it damaged her lungs, but it’s also preventing her from finding a job.

The Nigerian government wants to stop medical professionals from leaving to countries including the United Kingdom and the United States by making it mandatory for doctors to work in state hospitals for five years.

In 2020, 1.9-million children were stillborn according to a new report from the World Health Organisation. Read how one woman’s experience of stillbirth inspired her to start a mental health support group for parents who lost a child during pregnancy.

Around the time Phumeza Tisile was receiving treatment for extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB), the cure rate for patients with that form of the disease was 15%. Tisile beat XDR-TB despite the odds, but not without a cost: she lost her hearing.

Goodman Makanda survived the most drug-resistant form of tuberculosis that scientists know of, but he lost a lung to the disease in the process. Now, he says he would “rather die” than take handfuls of TB medicine again.

Bayanda Maseko lost 2 000 chickens and more than R100 000 he invested in his farm in 2022, all because of loadshedding. Maseko says psychological support is needed in an industry where “it's every man for himself”. He speaks about the impact of these losses on his mental health in the March episode of Bhekisisa’s television show Health Beat.

When a primary school teacher in the Western Cape suspected that one of her pupils was being sexually abused, she did everything she could to help. Here’s what happened next.

South Africa plans to roll out treatment for opioid addiction to all government health facilities by 2028, according to a draft of the country’s sixth HIV action plan. Read one person’s story of recovery here.

In 2017, Lesotho became the first African country to legalise cannabis. Nearly six years later, the industry is yet to change the country’s fortunes.

In 2019, diseases linked to air pollution killed 1.1-million people in Africa. Could electric motorcycles save lives with cleaner air?

In the small rural town of Chivhu, Zimbabwe, 10-year-old Grace Zvarebwa is training for a pan-African schools chess tournament in Liberia. Chess is an activity normally reserved for the country’s elite schools, but the sport has transformed the lives of rural school girls like Zvarebwa.

Korogocho is one of Nairobi’s most dangerous slums, where rape and robbery are common. Beatrice Nyariara is helping women aged 55 to 90 to fight back.

A psychiatric facility in Freetown has stepped away from its colonial past and removed these ‘shackles’ from their patients.