Africa: Can an Ancient Virus Be Brought Back to Life? What 500-Year-Old Smallpox DNA Reveals

Africa: Can an Ancient Virus Be Brought Back to Life? What 500-Year-Old Smallpox DNA Reveals

Smallpox is the only human infectious disease to have been eradicated worldwide. Researchers have now recovered fragments of ancient DNA belonging to variola virus, the virus that causes smallpox, from the naturally mummified remains of two Indigenous people buried in northern Chile. For centuries, smallpox caused devastating epidemics. Its severe form, variola major, killed around…

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Africa: Can an Ancient Virus Be Brought Back to Life? What 500-Year-Old Smallpox DNA Reveals

Africa: New Research Reveals How Countries Can Continue to Deliver Life-Saving Medicine in Complex Settings

A new study shows how to improve the delivery of seasonal malaria chemoprevention to countries facing barriers, such as extreme weather events or conflict. Delivering life-saving malaria prevention services in areas affected by conflict and flooding continues to present unique operational challenges in many African countries. A new study published in Malaria Journal examines the…

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Africa: New Data Reveals Scale of PEPFAR Disruptions as HIV Services Falter

Africa: New Data Reveals Scale of PEPFAR Disruptions as HIV Services Falter

The first large-scale evidence from organisations implementing the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) suggests that recent funding and policy disruptions have triggered widespread interruptions to HIV services, with local organisations, children and key populations among those hardest hit. For more than two decades, PEPFAR has been held up as one of the…

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Africa: Can an Ancient Virus Be Brought Back to Life? What 500-Year-Old Smallpox DNA Reveals

Africa: Ports Are Not Just Infrastructure – What Tema Reveals About Development in Africa

Across Africa, large-scale infrastructure projects are transforming economies at an unprecedented pace. Between 2010 and 2022, African ports captured an outsized share of global port investment – $13 billion, concentrated heavily in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Senegal, and Ghana. Ports, railways and energy systems are widely framed as the backbone of this growth:…

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