Tuberculosis and Migrant Pathways in an Urban Setting: A Mixed-Method Case Study on a Treatment Centre in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area, Portugal.

Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease associated with poverty. In the European Union TB tends to concentrate in urban settings. In Lisbon, previous studies revealed, the presence of migrant populations from a high endemic country, is one of the risk factors contributing to TB.

The circuits of healthcare: Understanding healthcare seeking behaviour-A qualitative study with tuberculosis patients in Lisbon, Portugal.

Background: Understanding health delivery service from a patient´s perspective, including factors influencing healthcare seeking behaviour, is crucial when treating diseases, particularly infectious ones, like tuberculosis. This study aims to trace and contextualise the trajectories patients pursued towards diagnosis and treatment, while discussing key factors associated with treatment delays. Tuberculosis patients' pathways may serve as indicator of the difficulties the more vulnerable sections of society experience in obtaining adequate care.

Newly Discovered Archival Data Show Coincidence of a Peak of Sexually Transmitted Diseases with the Early Epicenter of Pandemic HIV-1.

To which extent STDs facilitated HIV-1 adaptation to humans, sparking the pandemic, is still unknown. We searched colonial medical records from 1906-1958 for Leopoldville, Belgian Congo, which was the initial epicenter of pandemic HIV-1, compiling counts of treated STD cases in both Africans and Europeans. Almost all Europeans were being treated, while for Africans, generalized treatment started only in 1929.

Regional cooperation and health diplomacy in Africa: from intra-colonial exchanges to multilateral health institutions.

Tracing the pathways of cooperation in health in sub-Saharan Africa from hesitant exchanges to institutionalized dimensions from the 1920s to the early 1960s, this article addresses regional dynamics in health diplomacy which have so far been under-researched. The evolution thereof from early beginnings with the League of Nations Health Organization to the Commission for Technical Assistance South of the Sahara and the World Health Organization's Regional Office for Africa, shows how bilateral dimensions were superseded by WHO's multilateral model of regional cooperation in health. Alignments, divergences, and outcomes are explored with respect to the strategies and policies pursued by colonial powers and independent African states regarding inter-regional relations, and their implications for public health and epidemiological interventions.

Ecological data in support of an analysis of Guinea-Bissau׳s medicinal flora.

This dataset presents an annotated list of medicinal plants used by local communities in Guinea-Bissau (West Africa), in a total of 218 species. Data was gathered by means of herbarium and bibliographic research, as well as fieldwork. Biological and ecological information is provided for each species, including in-country distribution, geographical range, growth form and main vegetation types.

Hybridising Medicine: Illness, Healing and the Dynamics of Reciprocal Exchange on the Upper Guinea Coast (West Africa).

The present article seeks to fill a number of lacunae with regard to the study of the circulation and assimilation of different bodies of medical knowledge in an important cultural contact zone, that is the Upper Guinea Coast. Building upon ongoing research on trade and cultural brokerage in the area, it focuses upon shifting attitudes and practices with regard to health and healing as a result of cultural interaction and hybridisation against the background of growing intra-African and Afro-Atlantic interaction from the fifteenth to the late seventeenth century. Largely based upon travel accounts, missionary reports and documents produced by the Portuguese Inquisition, it shows how forms of medical knowledge shifted and circulated between littoral areas and their hinterland, as well as between the coast, the Atlantic and beyond.

Medicinal plants of Guinea-Bissau: Therapeutic applications, ethnic diversity and knowledge transfer.

Ethnopharmacological Relevance: The rich flora of Guinea-Bissau, and the widespread use of medicinal plants for the treatment of various diseases, constitutes an important local healthcare resource with significant potential for research and development of phytomedicines. The goal of this study is to prepare a comprehensive documentation of Guinea-Bissau's medicinal plants, including their distribution, local vernacular names and their therapeutic and other applications, based upon local notions of disease and illness.

Materials And Methods: Ethnobotanical data was collected by means of field research in Guinea-Bissau, study of herbarium specimens, and a comprehensive review of published works.

Public health and tropical modernity: the combat against sleeping sickness in Portuguese Guinea, 1945-1974.

Until the establishment of the "Commission for the study of and combat against sleeping sickness" (Missão de estudo e combate à doença do sono) in 1945, underfunded and understaffed health services had not been a priority for the colonial administration in Portuguese Guinea. The Commission not only implemented endemic disease control in the territory under the auspices of metropolitan institutions, but also provided preventive public healthcare to the local population. Its relative success in reducing the negative impact of Human African Trypanosomiasis turned the colony into an apparent model of tropical modernity.