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Background: Our recent studies have shown headache disorders to be very common in the central and western sub-Saharan countries of Benin and Cameroon. Here we report headache in nearby Mali, a strife-torn country that differs topographically, culturally, politically and economically. The purposes were to estimate headache-attributed burden and need for headache care., Methods: We used cluster-random sampling in seven of Mali's eleven regions to obtain a nationally representative sample. During unannounced household visits by trained interviewers, one randomly selected adult member (18-65 years) from each household was interviewed using the structured HARDSHIP questionnaire, with enquiries into headache in the last year and, additionally, headache yesterday (HY). Headache on ≥ 15 days/month (H15+) was diagnosed as probable medication-overuse headache (pMOH) when associated with acute medication use on ≥ 15 days/month, and as "other H15+" when not. Episodic headache (on < 15 days/month) was recorded as such and not further diagnosed. Burden was assessed as impaired participation (days lost from paid and household work, and from leisure activity). Need for headache care was defined by criteria for expectation of benefit., Results: Data collection coincided with the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. The participating proportion was nonetheless extremely high (99.4%). The observed 1-year prevalence of any headache was 90.9%. Age- and gender-adjusted estimates were 86.3% for episodic headache, 1.4% for pMOH and 3.1% for other H15+. HY was reported by 16.8% with a mean duration of 8.7 h. Overall mean headache frequency was 3.5 days/month. Participants with pMOH lost more days from paid (8.8 days/3 months) and household work (10.3 days/3 months) than those with other H15+ (3.1 and 2.8 days/3 months) or episodic headache (1.2 and 0.9 days/3 months). At population level, 3.6-5.8% of all time was spent with headache, which led to a 3.6% decrease in all activity (impaired participation). Almost a quarter (23.4%) of Mali's adult population need headache care., Conclusion: Headache is very common in Mali, as in its near neighbours, Benin and Cameroon, and associated with substantial losses of health and productivity. Need for headache care is high - a challenge for a low-income country - but lost productivity probably translates into lost gross domestic product., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

This work is the result of a retrospective study carried out over three months, from February to April 2002 in the ENT service of Gabriel Touré hospital of Bamako (Mali). The purpose of the study was to find out the prevalence of HIV/aids among ENT patients over the study period. Out of 691 patients, there were 19 cases of seropositivity (2.7%). These seropositive patients were quite often young women, over half of them urban (16/19), jobless and unpaid. The oro-pharyngo-laryngology symptoms though not often obvious in the HIV/AIDS manifestations deserve to be studied more as they can point out possible screening.

From 1994 to 1999, 19 cases of laryngeal papillomatosis were observed. The sex-ratio M/F was 0.9 and the mean age 10 years. The motive for consulting was dyspnoea for 45% of the cases and in all these cases resulted in emergency tracheotomy. The only available means of intervention was peeling under general anaesthesia. An anatomopathological examination could be carried out for only 63.1% of cases. Prevalence of the disease has been under-estimated for reasons of late diagnosis and the inaccessibility to health structures for some cases.

We realized a clinical study in 65 patients with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, aged from 3 to 62 years old (mean, 34 years) (34 males and 31 females) interned or showed in consultations at the hospital Gabriel Touré in Bamako, Mali (departments of ENT diseases and of internal medicine), in order to analyse and to state precisely different otorhinolaryngologic manifestations in AIDS. Oropharyngeal candidiasis was the most prevalent otorhinolaryngologic manifestation (57 %). Other less common lesions were suppurative otitis media (29 %), atrophic pharyngitis (18,5 %), sinusitis (11 %), Kaposi's sarcoma (5 %) localized above all on the palate: they are however a frequent sign of infection by HIV. The manifestations merit a particular attention by otorhinolaryngologist because, although they have few influence on the general evolution of the disease, they appear as additional manifestations of infectious risks in AIDS patients.