Public Health
Health & Medicine
The Untold Story of Women Living with Epilepsy in Cameroon
This piece documents the compounded vulnerability of women and girls living with epilepsy in Cameroon, who face both medical stigma and systematic sexual exploitation. Through testimony and analysis, it exposes how deep misconceptions about epilepsy—framed as contagion or spiritual curse—render these women targets for deception, abandonment, and exclusion from protection and opportunity.
A Doctor's Counsel on Cancer Screening: Chadwick Boseman's Death and the Rise of Early Disease in Young Cameroonians
Following actor Chadwick Boseman's death from colon cancer at 43, a Cameroonian physician uses the moment to educate young men on warning signs often mistaken for minor ailments, the availability and cost of colonoscopy screening in Cameroon, and the particular vulnerability of Black populations to colorectal cancer.
Feminising Healthcare: Four Reasons Why It Serves Universal Health Coverage
A physician argues that centering women's health, leadership, economic power, and decision-making authority is not ideological but pragmatic—a necessary framework for achieving universal health coverage across Africa. The writer draws on personal experience and systemic observation to show how gender equity in healthcare directly improves outcomes and health system resilience.
Why Feminism Matters for Universal Healthcare in Africa
A Cameroonian physician argues that achieving universal health coverage across Africa requires centering women's health, leadership, economic power, and decision-making authority—not as a peripheral concern, but as a structural necessity rooted in feminist principles of equality and rights.
Stigma and Silence: Epilepsy in Cameroon
A public health worker reflects on fieldwork with persons with epilepsy in Cameroon, documenting the severe social stigma—particularly against women—that compounds the medical burden of the condition. The piece asks why neurological disorder carries such different moral weight than other chronic illnesses, and calls for compassion over judgment.
The Gravity We Cannot Afford: COVID-19 and the Limits of Prevention in Cameroon
Written in April 2020 as the pandemic reached Cameroon, this essay argues that standard public health measures—social distancing and confinement—are structurally incompatible with how African societies, and Cameroon in particular, are organized economically and culturally. The writer contends that without material support and systemic change, preventive measures will fail because survival itself takes precedence.
How Long Are We Going to Stay Indoors? Economic Resilience and Pandemic Duration
Written in early April 2020, this piece examines whether modern societies can sustain the social distancing necessary to control a pandemic comparable to the 1918 influenza. The writer argues that while historical evidence shows social distancing reduces deaths, our interconnected global economy makes prolonged lockdown psychologically and financially unsustainable—and calls for structural economic redesign to prepare for future pandemics.
There is no health without mental health
A direct examination of mental health's absence from Cameroon's public health conversation, showing how cultural explanations—witchcraft, generational curses, divine punishment—have crowded out clinical understanding and left patients isolated. The piece frames mental health as both a human rights crisis and an economic one, and outlines concrete work underway to shift the conversation.
Corona Virus: Spread Information, Not Panic
Written in early March 2020 as COVID-19 began circulating globally, this post challenges what the writer sees as reckless fear-mongering by medical professionals in Cameroon. By presenting case fatality rates, severity breakdowns, and age-stratified mortality data, the writer argues for calm, evidence-based communication and correct public health guidance.
Myths About Preventing Unwanted Pregnancies
A clear-eyed breakdown of common misconceptions among young Cameroonians about emergency contraception, distinguishing between folk methods that do not work and evidence-based approaches like morning-after pills and douching.
Myths About Preventing Unwanted Pregnancies
A medical doctor addresses widespread misconceptions among young Cameroonians about emergency contraception, distinguishing folk remedies and ineffective practices from evidence-based methods. The piece explains the biological requirements for pregnancy prevention and recommends the combination of douching and morning-after pills as a reliable approach.
Tramadol and the Opioid Paradox in Cameroon
A medical perspective on tramadol abuse in Cameroon, situating it within a broader landscape of substance misuse among young adults while arguing for controlled prescription protocols rather than outright prohibition. The writer identifies tramadol as a 'necessary evil'—essential for pain management yet vulnerable to abuse—and proposes a harm-mitigation framework centered on doctor-only dispensation and vendor accountability.