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Guidelines for implementing the World Health Organization's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) recommend prohibiting tobacco industry corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives, but few African countries have done so. We examined African media coverage of tobacco industry CSR initiatives to understand whether and how such initiatives were presented to the public and policymakers. We searched two online media databases (Lexis Nexis and Access World News) for all news items published from 1998 to 2013, coding retrieved items through a collaborative, iterative process. We analysed the volume, type, provenance, slant and content of coverage, including the presence of tobacco control or tobacco interest themes. We found 288 news items; most were news stories published in print newspapers. The majority of news stories relied solely on tobacco industry representatives as news sources, and portrayed tobacco industry CSR positively. When public health voices and tobacco control themes were included, news items were less likely to have a positive slant. This suggests that there is a foundation on which to build media advocacy efforts. Drawing links between implementing the FCTC and prohibiting or curtailing tobacco industry CSR programmes may result in more public dialogue in the media about the negative impacts of tobacco company CSR initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Kikuyu grass (Pennisetum elandestinum) is widely used as a grazing pasture in Africa and, although it is extensively cultivated as a lawn for sports fields and domestic gardens, its allergenicity has never been studied in vitro. Using an extract of Kikuyu grass pollen, polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. Western blotting and a monoclonal anti-human IgE antibody, the specific lgF binding, in the serum of 160 allergic and non-allergic patients in the Cape Town area, to a Kikuyu grass extract was studied. IgE in the sera of 43/104 known grass-allergic individuals bound to Kikuyu grass on the Western blots. In addition, 4/28 'non-allergic" control subjects were found to have Kikuyu grass-specific IgE. Five different profiles of specific IgE reactivity to Kikuyu grass antigens were oberved. In 29/43 patients, IgE bound to two dominant 48 and 70 kD allergens in the Kikuyu extract. Although a degree of cross-reactivity with Bermuda gruss (Cynodon dactylis) was found in immunoabsorption studies, the 48 and 70 kD allergens appear to be unique to Kikuyu grass. Exposure of heparinized blood from Kikuyu grass-positive patients to the Kikuyu extract stimulated the release of histamine from their basophils in vitro. Kikuyu grass pollen is thus identified as an important aero-allergen in South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]