Traditional/alternative medicines and the right to health: Key elements for a convention on global health.

Little has been done to investigate and promote the importance of non-conventional medicines (NCMs) in the realization of the right to health, yet all over the world people regularly resort to NCMs to secure healing or to prevent or mitigate the occurrence of a wide range of morbidities. This study aims to elucidate the theoretical framework of the role of NCMs in realizing the right to health, to identify the potential manifestations and causes of violations of the right to health in their practice, and to propose the practice of NCMs that could be included in a Framework Convention on Global Health. We use both the documentary analysis and the violation of rights approaches.

Knowledge, behaviours, practices and beliefs regarding Human African Trypanosomiasis (HAT) among inhabitants of Kinshasa (Democratic Republic of Congo).

Background: In Kinshasa, an average of less than 50 new cases of Human African Trypanosomiasis was notified, per year, between 1969 and 1995. The situation of endemic sleeping sickness suddenly worsened in 1996 with 254 new cases identified thanks to passive detection. No study dealing with conceptions relative to sleeping sickness was ever listed to date.