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This brief report article presents the current educational challenges refugees face in Uganda based on their perceptions. The perceptions of the refugees were collected through an approach that ensured that refugee leaders, students, and non-students commented on the education of refugees in Uganda. 15 individual interviews with refugee students in Kampala in 2021 were complemented by data collected from 2 Focus Group discussions in 2020. The individual interview participants included 3 secondary school students, 10 university students, and 2 Vocational Education and Training (VET) students. Focus Group one was a group of refugee leaders in Rhino Refugee settlement area, and Focus Group two was for urban refugee youths in Arua City. This brief report article contributes to understanding the educational challenges of the refugees in Uganda through a broader focus that includes postsecondary education than concentrating on access to primary and secondary education, which are the main focus of research and policy interventions. Furthermore, the challenges presented, such as tuition fees at institutions of higher learning, the stigmatisation of refugee students, the lack of educational advice and career guidance for refugee students, and the COVID-19 effects, show that there is need to expand policy interventions to address educational challenges faced by the refugees.

This paper examines three interrelated factors outside of formal provision of technical and vocational education and training (TVET) in sub-Saharan Africa that have undermined TVET systems. The first is the process, pace, and levels of industrialisation, which has had a direct effect on TVET provision: low numbers of well-paying jobs requiring technical expertise. This has an indirect effect, which is the second crucial factor: lack of economic development and change in labour markets. There are very few jobs that would be considered 'middle class' or 'mid-level' in wealthy countries. Most people are in survivalist work. An international consensus since the 2000s on palliative approaches to development which address the effects but not the causes of the lack of economic development in Africa has resulted in mass poor quality provision of education--the third factor. Education systems are rapidly expanding and achievement levels rising, in the context of very little possibility of labour market rewards for most people, and substantial labour market rewards confined mainly to graduates. This reinforces deeply embedded cultural preferences for general education, which originate in the type of education systems established by colonial powers, as well as the relationships between educational credentials and elite jobs.

Livelihood adaptation in refugee camps is often fragile and inherently problematic owing to their physical characteristics and policy restrictions. The Uganda refugee policy applauded as progressive exhibits internal contradictions which influence livelihoods. The purpose of this study is to explore the significant role of adult education in livelihood adaptation. The study used qualitative research methods of interviews and focus group discussions. Purposive sampling technique was used in selecting 70 participants from eight Common Interest Groups, of both refugees and Ugandan nationals. The findings indicate that access to agriculture extension education and financial literacy facilitates the acquisition of relevant skillsets for adaptation. The study concludes that adult education provides immediate, relevant skillsets for adaptation.

Despite the wealth of evidence that early learning opportunities are crucial for young children in crisis, little evidence shows a commensurate commitment to early childhood development (ECD) provision in refugee and humanitarian programming. The Kyaka II refugee settlement in Uganda is a case in point. Home to over 125,000 Congolese refugees, Kyaka II settlement has quadrupled in size over the past three years and is now populated well beyond its intended capacity. Close to the border of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), this settlement received approximately 3,500 new Congolese arrivals each month in the pre-pandemic era; numbers are sure to rise again when the borders reopen. Typically, over 65% of the arrivals are children, many of whom have suffered extreme trauma after witnessing the brutality of war and displacement. They face serious child protection risks and have few safe places to go during the day. While a number of NGOs are providing primary education, ECD provision remains limited. Bringing education to children living in refugee camps and other challenging circumstances requires sustainable education solutions. This article discusses several important ways Children on the Edge made sustainable education a reality in the Kyaka II settlement.

This study investigates the impact of higher education on economic growth and is based on a sample of 18 African economies over the time period 1980-2015. The research makes use of a Panel Vector Autoregression (PVAR) framework to account for potential dynamic and endogenous relationship in modelling of the tertiary education-growth nexus. The findings show that higher education significantly increases the economic growth of the sample of African countries understudy with a lagged time. The economic effect of higher education is observed to be relatively smaller as those reported for the case of developed countries and also in comparison with primary and secondary education. Interestingly, this research also confirms the presence of a reverse causation as the economy's income is also a determinant of tertiary education, although with a lagged time. Domestic and foreign direct investment, education attainment as well as openness level are also observed to be other determinants of tertiary education enrollment. Finally, there is evidence that tertiary education encourages private and foreign direct investment thus indirectly affecting growth rates.

Public and private universities in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, South Africa, and elsewhere in Africa, were experiencing all time high enrollments since the late 1990s. To address these demands, university administrators sought partnerships with universities of the global North to facilitate the necessary educational reform and curriculum transformation to meet the needs of the increased enrollments. In spite of these efforts, in the past 10 years the partnerships failed to meet expectations. A case approach was used to study reports, journals, interview notes, surveys, and qualitative data collected during 2007-2012 from one university selected purposely to shed light on partnerships and linkages with African universities. The authors examined the expectations, dynamics, and intricacies of academic partnerships and the reality of African academic institutions. The analysis revealed perplexing assumptions that undergird the expectations of collaboration between U.S. and African partners as well as cross-cultural dynamics that govern, sustain, and sometimes frustrate such engagements.

African skilled migrants and their circular and return migration strategies have received relatively little attention in the literature, with the previous focus of much African migration literature being on the net loss of skills to countries with developed economies in the global north. This article considers 13 interviews with African skilled migrant academics on topics of migration, networks and language resources. The majority of the participants migrated to major receiving countries and then returned to the African continent to take up employment as academics in South Africa. In the migration trajectories of these African academics, their language expertise, specifically in English as the current global language of academia, is central to their strategies and migrant routes. It emerges that the paths of migration from their home countries (Zambia, Malawi, Nigeria, Ghana, DRC, Kenya, Uganda and Zimbabwe) are connected to language, resources and networks. African skilled migrant academics are caught, physically and metaphorically between the local, linked to the concept of "village," and the global, linked to the concept of "network" in Castells' terms. In language terms, this implies particular responsibilities for home languages on the one hand and English as a transnational language on the other hand.

When refugees arrive in urban areas of Uganda, they face daunting challenges. Notably, refugees report instances of discrimination and mistreatment by the Ugandan welcoming culture. However, scholars or NGO's studying urban refugees have excluded the Ugandan population from data collection and research methods. By comparing ethnographic data collected from 9 Congolese refugees and 19 Ugandans over a one-month period, this article answers the following question -- what are possible causes of the social discord between refugees and the Ugandan welcoming culture? Focusing on urban areas of Kampala, Uganda, this article considered the areas of medical care, police interactions, or more general associations of food sharing and economic situations as Ugandans and urban refugees experience them. Answering this question, this article argues that reports of discrimination and mistreatment against refugees in urban Uganda should not be viewed as a primary phenomenon, but rather as ancillary products resultant of cultural misunderstandings. John W. Berry's theoretical work on acculturation strategies provides additional insight to the claim of this article.

Income varies considerably within countries and the locations where conflicts emerge are rarely typical or representative for states at large. Yet, most research on conflict has only examined national income averages and neglected spatial variation. The authors argue that civil conflicts are more likely to erupt in areas with low absolute income, even if a country's gross domestic product (GDP) per capita is not necessarily low, and in areas with large deviations from national averages. The authors test these hypotheses empirically using spatially disaggregated data on the location of conflict outbreaks and per capita income estimates. The authors find that areas with absolute poverty indeed see more outbreaks of conflict, and they find some evidence that inequality increases the risk of conflict. Subnational information can improve on conventional country-based measures and help our understanding of how local features and variation can give rise to mobilization and violence. (Contains 5 figures, 3 tables, and 21 notes.)

Jacques Bwira arrived in Uganda in 2000, having fled the violent conflict in his native country, the Democratic Republic of Congo. Though he had trained and worked as a teacher in Congo, he feared that speaking only French would prevent him from making a living in his new home. The police officer who interrogated Jacques on arrival in the capital city of Kampala took him to a flat rented by a Catholic priest who often hosted refugees. Jacques agreed to begin teaching the children of other refugees in his native French in exchange for a place to live. Emerging from a small operation serving a handful of neighbors, the Hope Primary School, of which Jacques is the founding director, now serves 217 refugee and Ugandan national children. Through hard work, advocacy, and community support, Jacques and the staff of Hope Primary School have been able to purchase land and build a permanent school--the only Ugandan school for refugees located outside a refugee camp. In this interview, editors from the "Harvard Educational Review" spoke with Jacques about the school's development, the community it serves, and its struggles and accomplishments. (Contains 4 notes.)

This article problematises the "vulnerables" category that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees applies to groups of refugees. Drawing on 9 months' qualitative research with young Congolese refugees in Uganda, it presents research subjects' self-identification and lived realities that do not correspond to the homogenous, fixed "vulnerables" ideal. Moreover, it argues that the "vulnerables" categorisation approach can provoke a number of counter-productive effects, including a focus on symptoms rather than causes, inflated numbers of "vulnerables" and undermining indigenous support structures. An alternative approach that interrogates and addresses the contextual and relational aspects of vulnerability is proposed.

This paper discusses the potentiality of Kiswahili in accelerating social, political, economic and cultural integration within the Great Lakes Region. Presently, Kiswahili is a "de facto" lingua franca spoken by almost 100 million people in the world (Ntakirutimana, 2000). This is an indication of its viability in promoting unity among people with different linguistic backgrounds. In fact, the recommendation of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) to adopt Kiswahili as a working language of the organisation in 1986 was motivated by this linguistic and cultural ability of the language. The paper discusses the reasons for the failure to implement these recommendations, and argues that the development of trade within and across borders will be hindered where communication is based on different ethnic languages, or on foreign languages that are not understood by all. The logical basis for making Kiswahili the appropriate tool in facilitating unity and motivating socioeconomic integration in the Great Lakes region is outlined, and recommendations are made for the empowerment of Kiswahili adequately to meet this challenge.

The Great Lakes region has, in the recent past, been awash with numerous border conflicts/or threats to conflict among the member states. Whereas various studies have endeavored to explain the emergence of such conflicts, many of them lay the blame on colonial cartographical errors and territorial hegemony that developed after independence. This article furthers the debate by examining why, in the recent past, there have been conflict/disputes on shared waters between Uganda and its neighbors. Escalating maritime border conflicts in the Great Lakes Region have been mainly due to the increasing need for both control and exploitation of key economic resources, leading to the struggle for control of these areas. The strategic importance of lakes such as Victoria, Albert and Edward will continue to make them sources of conflict among countries in the Great Lakes Region, as long as a proper resource-management mechanism under international protocol is not put in place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pathogen surveillance for great ape health monitoring has typically been performed on non-invasive samples, primarily feces, in wild apes and blood in sanctuary-housed apes. However, many important primate pathogens, including known zoonoses, are shed in saliva and transmitted via oral fluids. Using metagenomic methods, we identified viruses in saliva samples from 46 wild-born, sanctuary-housed chimpanzees at two African sanctuaries in Republic of Congo and Uganda. In total, we identified 20 viruses. All but one, an unclassified CRESS DNA virus, are classified in five families: Circoviridae, Herpesviridae, Papillomaviridae, Picobirnaviridae, and Retroviridae. Overall, viral prevalence ranged from 4.2% to 87.5%. Many of these viruses are ubiquitous in primates and known to replicate in the oral cavity (simian foamy viruses, Retroviridae; a cytomegalovirus and lymphocryptovirus; Herpesviridae; and alpha and gamma papillomaviruses, Papillomaviridae). None of the viruses identified have been shown to cause disease in chimpanzees or, to our knowledge, in humans. These data suggest that the risk of zoonotic viral disease from chimpanzee oral fluids in sanctuaries may be lower than commonly assumed., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2023 Dunay et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

This article examines the development of American policy in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Why did the U.S. become involved? I argue that Washington's policy was based in how they framed the conflict. They chose to see it through the prism of Rwandan and Ugandan security needs. The Administration favored the narrative of genocide instead of contemplating a war of 'partition and plunder.' This may not be surprising because Washington often privileges a Westphalian approach to security and ignores the role of economic sub-state actors. However, by doing so they exhibited a 'crushing neutrality' towards Laurent Kabila. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Western Uganda is a key region for understanding the development of the western branch of the East African rift system and its interaction with pre-existing cratonic lithosphere. It is also the site of the topographically anomalous Rwenzori Mountains, which attain altitudes of >5000 m within the rift. New structural and geochronological data indicate that western Uganda south and east of the Rwenzori Mountains consists of a WSW to ENE trending fold and thrust belt emplaced by thick-skinned tectonics that thrust several slices of Proterozoic and Archaean units onto the craton from the south. The presence of Archaean units within the thrust stack is supported by new Laser-ICP-MS U-Pb age determinations (2637-2584 Ma) on zircons from the Rwenzori foothills. Repetition of the Paleoproterozoic units is confirmed by mapping the internal stratigraphy where a basal quartzite can be used as marker layer, and discrete thrust units show distinct metamorphic grades. The thrust belt is partially unconformably covered by a Neoproterozoic nappe correlated with the Kibaran orogenic belt. Even though conglomerates mark the bottom of the Kibaran unit, intensive brittle fault zones and pseudotachylites disprove an autochthonous position. The composition of volcanics in the Toro-Ankole field of western Uganda can be explained by the persistence of a cratonic lithosphere root beneath the northwardly thrusted Archaean and Palaeoproterozoic rocks of westernmost Uganda. Volcanic geochemistry indicates thinning of the lithosphere from >140 km beneath Toro-Ankole to ca. 80 km beneath the Virunga volcanic field about 150 km to the south. We conclude that the western branch of the East African rift system was initiated in an area of thinner lithosphere with Palaeoproterozoic cover in the Virunga area and has propagated northwards where it now abuts against thick cratonic lithosphere covered by a thrust belt consisting of gneisses, metasediments and metavolcanics of Neoarchaean to Proterozoic age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article looks at the complex history of the border area between what is now North-West Uganda, the Equatoria region of South Sudan, and the North-East Democratic Republic of Congo, over pre-colonial, colonial and post colonial periods. In the early colonial period, international borders changed several times, and local people found themselves successively part of King Leopold's Belgian Congo, Anglo-Egyptian Condominium Sudan, and the Uganda Protectorate. Cross-border movements included European adventurers, slave armies and ivory poachers, who periodically terrorised local populations. As “West Nile” district, colonial North-West Uganda was systematically underdeveloped, and became a labour reserve and a major source of army recruitment (epitomised by the characteristic local figure of Idi Amin). In the post-colonial era, movement over the borders has been characterised by large-scale cross-border informal trade, refugee movements, armed rebel groups, and the region's continued marginalisation from more economically developed and politically powerful parts of the three countries. The article explores changes and continuities in the salience of these borders over the past century and a half. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite improved control measures, Ebola remains a serious public health risk in African regions where recurrent outbreaks have been observed since the initial epidemic in 1976. Using epidemic modeling and data from two well-documented Ebola outbreaks (Congo 1995 and Uganda 2000), we estimate the number of secondary cases generated by an index case in the absence of control interventions (R0). Our estimate of R0 is 1.83 (sd 0.06) for Congo (1995) and 1.34 (sd 0.03) for Uganda (2000). We model the course of the outbreaks via an SEIR (susceptible-exposed-infectious-removed) epidemic model that includes a smooth transition in the transmission rate after control interventions are put in place. We perform an uncertainty analysis of the basic reproductive number R0 to quantify its sensitivity to other disease-related parameters. We also analyse the sensitivity of the final epidemic size to the time interventions begin and provide a distribution for the final epidemic size. The control measures implemented during these two outbreaks (including education and contact tracing followed by quarantine) reduce the final epidemic size by a factor of 2 relative the final size with a 2-week delay in their implementation. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Background: CRISPR-based diagnostics are a new class of highly sensitive and specific assays with multiple applications in infectious disease diagnosis. SHERLOCK, or Specific High-Sensitivity Enzymatic Reporter UnLOCKing, is one such CRISPR-based diagnostic that combines recombinase polymerase pre-amplification, CRISPR-RNA base-pairing, and LwCas13a activity for nucleic acid detection., Methods: We developed SHERLOCK assays capable of detecting all Plasmodium species known to cause human malaria and species-specific detection of P. vivax and P. falciparum, the species responsible for the majority of malaria cases worldwide. We further tested these assays using a diverse panel of clinical samples from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, and Thailand and pools of Anopheles mosquitoes from Thailand. In addition, we developed a prototype SHERLOCK assay capable of detecting the dihydropteroate synthetase (dhps) single nucleotide variant A581G associated with P. falciparum sulfadoxine resistance., Findings: The suite of Plasmodium assays achieved analytical sensitivities ranging from 2•5-18•8 parasites per reaction when tested against laboratory strain genomic DNA. When compared to real-time PCR, the P. falciparum assay achieved 94% sensitivity and 94% specificity during testing of 123 clinical samples. Compared to amplicon-based deep sequencing, the dhps SHERLOCK assay achieved 73% sensitivity and 100% specificity when applied to a panel of 43 clinical samples, with false-negative calls only at lower parasite densities., Interpretation: These novel SHERLOCK assays demonstrate the versatility of CRISPR-based diagnostics and their potential as a new generation of molecular tools for malaria diagnosis and surveillance., Funding: National Institutes of Health (T32GM007092, R21AI148579, K24AI134990, R01AI121558, UL1TR002489, P30CA016086)., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest JBP reports research support from Gilead Sciences and non-financial support from Abbott Laboratories for providing reagents and laboratory testing in-kind for studies of viral hepatitis and financial support from the World Health Organization, outside the scope of the current work., (Copyright © 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Fourteen new species of the Afrotropical genus Thubdora Park, 2018 (Lecithoceridae: Torodorinae) are described from Uganda: Thubdora afropyralidis Park, sp. nov., T. fruticosa Park, sp. nov., T. kibalensis Park, sp. nov., T. klenodes Park, sp. nov., T. latidiscalis Park, sp. nov., T. mirinae Park, sp. nov., T. nemorosa Park, sp. nov., T. retusivalva Park, sp. nov., T. umbratilis Park, sp. nov., and T. wooriana Park, sp. nov. in the aciphalla species-group (10 species); and T. corystos Park, sp. nov., T. narusia Park, sp. nov., T. trigonoides Park, sp. nov., and T. villosiphalla Park, sp. nov. in the acutalis species-group (four species). Four species are reported for the first time from Uganda: T. ambliodes Park, 2018, T. bilobella Park, 2018, T. ealaensis Park De Prins, 2019, and T. ghesquierei Park De Prins, 2019; and the females of T. ealaensis and T. ghesquierei are newly described, and their genitalia are illustrated. In addition, three species of Ptilothyris Walsingham, 1897 previously recorded from DR Congo are transferred to Thubdora: T. brachysema (Meyrick, 1938), comb. nov., T. crocophracta (Meyrick, 1938), comb. nov., and T. nemophorella (Ghesquière, 1940), comb. nov. Lectotypes for T. brachysema and T. crocophracta are designated herein. Identifications of the new species and corresponding females were confirmed based on the comparison of COI barcode sequences. Adults and genitalia of all the new species and the three species transferred from Ptilothyris are illustrated.

Ebola Virus Disease in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) was declared a public health emergency of international concern on July 17, 2019. The first case to cross the border into Uganda in June 2019 demonstrates the importance of better understanding border dynamics in a context of Ebola. This paper adopts a political economy approach to contextualize epidemic response programs conducted in moderate- and high-risk border districts in Uganda, through a qualitative study with 287 participants. To that end, our aim was to describe the historical underpinnings of the borderlands context; the role of livelihood strategies in constraining risk avoidance decisions; and the dynamics of trust in authority figures, including health workers. This paper reports that border communities are highly connected, for a variety of social and economic reasons. These daily realities are in direct opposition to guidance to limit travel during an active Ebola epidemic. We argue that an ability to limit movement is constrained by the economic need to seek livelihood strategies wherever that may be. Moreover, border regions are populated by communities with long-standing distrust in authority figures, particularly in fishing areas. This distrust spills over with consequences for Ebola prevention and control activities. This research indexes the importance of tailoring Ebola programming and policies to consider the political and economic dynamics of borderlands., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Banana production landscapes in the African Great Lakes Region (AGLR) have been under immense pressure from Xanthomonas wilt (XW) disease over the past two decades. XW, first reported on banana in central Uganda and eastern DR Congo in 2001, has since spread to the entire AGLR. XW is currently spreading westwards from hot spots in eastern DR Congo highlands, putting the plantain (Musa AAB genome) belt of central and west Africa at risk. In-depth understanding of the key variables responsible for disease spread, current hotspots, and vulnerable landscapes is crucial for disease early warning and management. We mapped aggregated disease distribution and hotspots in the AGLR and identified vulnerable landscapes across African banana production zones. Available data on disease prevalence collected over 11 years was regressed against environmental and expert developed covariates to develop the AGLR XW hotspots map. For the Africa-wide risk map, precipitation, distance to hotspots, degree of trade in fresh banana products, production zone interconnectedness and banana genotype composition were used as covariates. In the AGLR, XW was mainly correlated to precipitation and disease/banana management. Altitude and temperature had unexpectedly low effects, possibly due to an overriding impact of tool-mediated spread which is part of the management covariate. In the AGLR, the eastern part of DR Congo was a large hotspot with highest vulnerability. Apart from endemic zones in the AGLR and Ethiopia, northern Mozambique was perceived as a moderate risk zone mainly due to the predominance of 'Bluggoe' (Musa ABB type) which is highly susceptible to insect-vectored transmission. Presence of XW hotspots (e.g. eastern DR Congo) and vulnerable areas with low (e.g. north-western Tanzania) or no disease (e.g. Congo basin, western DR Congo and northern Mozambique) pressure suggest key areas where proactive measures e.g. quarantines and information sharing on XW diagnosis, epidemiology, and control could be beneficial., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. GeoSpace and the author (HB) from GeoSpace, a commercial entity, have no competing interest. This commercial affiliation does not alter our adherence to the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

A new genus Monocentroptilum gen. n. is established for a single Afrotropical species, originally described as Centroptilum badium Kopelke 1980 from Congo. Larvae, subimagoes, imagoes of both sexes and eggs of Monocentroptilum badium comb. n. are described here based on reared material from Uganda.

During late Cenozoic pre-rift times the viviparid genus Bellamya wasprobably confined to eastern Africa while in the Congo Basin occurred the genera Neothauma and Kaya (a new genus described herein). During the Pliocene, Kaya became extinct and Neothauma became a relict in Lake Tanganyika. All African rift lakes formed during or after the Pliocene were colonised by populations of Bellamya, which evolved into lacustrine endemics. The changes in shell morphology in Bellamya, such as ornamentation functioning as protection against predators, are modest and repetitive in time and space. After the initial adaptationsstasis followed, and there is no indication of an arms race between prey and predator in this genus. In the lakes of the western rift that were formed prior to the Pliocene, namely Lake Tanganyika and Palaeolake Obweruka, Neothauma instead of Bellamya was the coloniser. Initially morphological inertia also occurred in this genus both in Tanganyika and, during the first four million years of its existence, in Palaeolake Obweruka, although from the outset this lake contained abundant highly specialised molluscivorous fishes. About 4.5 Ma a major extinction event occurred in the Obweruka Basin which led to the extermination of 50% of the molluscan species but none of the molluscivores. Among the viviparids, only one of the Neothauma species survived, its populations isolated and highly reduced in numbers. Immediately after this crisis a conchological quantum change occurred, the surviving lineage changing into a strongly ornamented thalassoid form. The dramatic morphological change is deemed to have been due to focussed selection by the predators on isolated and small prey populations. A radiative event immediately followed, producing still more strongly ornamented forms. The morphological changes that occurred in the Obwerukan Neothauma, in comparison to the modest and repeated patterns of evolution that can be observed in viviparids from other lakes, provides [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Algorithms to diagnose gambiense human African trypanosomiasis (HAT, sleeping sickness) are often complex due to the unsatisfactory sensitivity and/or specificity of available tests, and typically include a screening (serological), confirmation (parasitological) and staging component. There is insufficient evidence on the relative accuracy of these algorithms. This paper presents estimates of the accuracy of five algorithms used by past Médecins Sans Frontières programmes in the Republic of Congo, Southern Sudan and Uganda., Methodology and Principal Findings: The sequence of tests in each algorithm was programmed into a probabilistic model, informed by distributions of the sensitivity, specificity and staging accuracy of each test, constructed based on a literature review. The accuracy of algorithms was estimated in a baseline scenario and in a worst-case scenario introducing various near worst-case assumptions. In the baseline scenario, sensitivity was estimated as 85-90% in all but one algorithm, with specificity above 99.9% except for the Republic of Congo, where CATT serology was used as independent confirmation test: here, positive predictive value (PPV) was estimated at <50% in realistic active screening prevalence scenarios. Furthermore, most algorithms misclassified about one third of true stage 1 cases as stage 2, and about 10% of true stage 2 cases as stage 1. In the worst-case scenario, sensitivity was 75-90% and PPV no more than 75% at 1% prevalence, with about half of stage 1 cases misclassified as stage 2., Conclusions: Published evidence on the accuracy of widely used tests is scanty. Algorithms should carefully weigh the use of serology alone for confirmation, and could enhance sensitivity through serological suspect follow-up and repeat parasitology. Better evidence on the frequency of low-parasitaemia infections is needed. Simulation studies should guide the tailoring of algorithms to specific scenarios of HAT prevalence and availability of control tools.

The gorillas that inhabit Bwindi Impenetrable National Park in Uganda are the least known of the eastern gorillas. Because they are an allopatric population living a minimum of 25 km from the well-studied population of mountain gorillas (Gorilla beringei beringei) in Rwanda and have certain morphological and ecological differences from these gorillas, their taxonomic status has been in question in recent years. This study presents new craniodental metrics from Bwindi individuals and compares them to Virunga individuals as well as to eastern lowland gorillas, G. gorilla graueri. Multivariate statistics, including MANCOVA, least-squares, regression, and principal components analyses, were used to evaluate how closely the Bwindi crania resemble the Virunga crania and how both relate to G. g. graueri. Results indicate that the Bwindi gorillas have generally smaller crania than the Virunga gorillas, but when metrics are log-transformed, the only variable that distinguishes the Bwindi individuals is a longer face. When both populations are compared to G. g. graueri, they cluster together separately from the eastern lowland gorillas, sharing such features as higher rami, wider bigonia, longer mandibles, and wider and shorter mandibular symphyses in relation to G. g. graueri. Functional morphological explanations for these differences are discussed, but lacking measurements of the physical properties of G. g. graueri, they cannot fully be explained. Results clearly indicate that at least pertaining to the cranium, upon which most gorilla taxonomy is based, the Bwindi gorillas are proper mountain gorillas (G. b. beringei)., ((c) 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc.)

The objective of this study was to identify factors that facilitate or hinder access to, use of, and satisfaction with reproductive health services in refugee settings, from the perspective of beneficiaries. Rapid appraisal methods included 46 focus group discussions and interviews with over 800 refugees, audits of 14 health facilities, referral hospital reviews, exit interviews with clients, and interviews with health workers. The study was conducted between February and April 2004 in 11 sites in Uganda, Republic of Congo, and Yemen. Reproductive health was clearly on the policy agenda in all countries with stable refugee sites, but problems with implementation and resources were identified. The quality of services was variable, with high staff turnover in some areas affecting relationships with refugee clients. Referral hospitals in host countries were not all equipped to deal with obstetric and other emergencies of either local or refugee populations, including deficiencies in safe blood supplies and antibiotics. Diagnosis and treatment of STIs and HIV/AIDS was frequently inadequate. Gender based violence was the least well addressed aspect of reproductive health. Interest and knowledge about family planning was high, but acceptance was low. It was concluded that progress has been made in reproductive health services for refugees since 1994, however, urgent advocacy and action is required to sustain and improve the situation. Local implementing partners need more support and supervision to develop appropriate service models and to maintain an acceptable standard of care.

There is a need to reassess the role of the trypanosomiases, both human and animal, in African ecology and economy. Withdrawal of control services from the Congo basin was followed by a resurgence of infection from ancient foci, many of them thought to have been extinguished. Successful elimination of Glossina in savanna habitats has sometimes been followed by reinvasion causing massive epizootics. Elsewhere continued recession of the tsetse fly has been followed by cattle population growth which is periodically interrupted by catastrophic pasture famines.Efficiency of control rather than large-scale eradication should be the immediate aim. Efficient control keeps trypanosomiasis at a tolerable level in relation to the competence of medical and veterinary services and ensures that the beneficial effects of disease in maintaining a balance between natural resource potential of the continent and the energy output of its inhabitants, are retained until they can be replaced by new social and economic controls integrated in local cultures.Many ideas about control planning formulated before 1960 are now irrelevant. To provide foundations for a new policy 3 requirements must be fulfilled. The first is to understand the nature of natural foci of infection of trypanosomiasis; the second is to collate knowledge of land-use potentials of the fly-belts; the third is to find a means of integrating information to achieve balanced control programmes. To do this a formal mathematical study of the epidemiology and epizootiology of the trypanosomiases should be initiated.