AFRO-NETS> Internet and Medical Journals in Africa

[Dieter Neuvians MD <neuvians@harare.iafrica.com>]

Internet and Medical Journals in Africa
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Paul Chinnock <paul@fsg.co.uk>, editor of the publication 'AFRICA 
HEALTH' recently discussed whether they should accept baby milk adver-
tising in AFRICA HEALTH.

In a follow-up he wrote:

During the next few months, you will not be seeing us at our best. We 
have lost the British government (DFID) grant that met a quarter of our 
costs and we now only have revenue from advertising. Healthcare compa-
nies are less and less keen to advertise to Africa, so it is all very 
worrying for us. We are cutting the number of pages we publish and, 
frankly, I don't know if our little company will still be around next 
year.... 

You mention AFRO-NETS helping us to increase our subscriber base! This 
would not help us as we already have a huge demand for the journal but 
subscription has to be free, as the kind of readers we seek to reach 
cannot afford to pay. It is the fact that we provide a free service 
that has given us such a key role. However, we can only afford to 
print/distribute about 6000 copies and we reject over half of those who 
apply for a subscription.... 

Some months back I asked if any of our readers had access to the Inter-
net and I have only received one reply, which follows below. You may 
like to put it on AFRO-NETS to stimulate debate:

"Internet will only reach a few. I have heard of the Internet but it 
sounds astronomical to me. I have been told it is something to do with 
computers. If this is so, I wonder how most of us could ever avail our-
selves of this wonderful invention. This is because it costs a fortune 
to own a computer in the developing world. The matter would have been 
simple were it that one can get connected to the Internet by switching 
on a TV set. Over the years the postmasters have been delivering our 
favourite journals (Africa Health, Medicine Digest etc.) to us on a 
regular basis. I for one have found these journals very handy. I keep 
them for reference purposes and do not have to travel to an information 
centre to check up certain facts before taking decisions. I think the 
Internet can only reach our colleagues in very few research centres and 
not the teaming professionals out there in the field working hard to 
fulfil their callings.

Thank you.
Dr U N Onyeuchi
Federal Staff Clinic
Ikoyi, Lagos, Nigeria."


It is interesting to note that this is not someone in a remote location 
but in one of Africa's biggest cities. Although I don't know his place 
of work, I would guess it is better endowed than the average African 
health facility. Like most of our readers, he will never have laid 
hands on a computer and may not even have seen one.

The number of African health workers who have a) electricity b) a tele-
phone line and c) a computer powerful enough to use the Net is pretty 
insignificant. But I am attracted by the idea of 'staging posts' in 
capital cities which could subscribe to such sources of health informa-
tion as, say, an on-line version of AFRICA HEALTH and select material 
from it which is appropriate to the particular country. The staging 
post could then print it out on paper and deliver it to healthcare pro-
viders themselves. The staging post could even take a more active role 
by adding comment and local information before distribution takes 
place. The problem would as always be finding the money for this.

I have been wondering whether to write a short paper expanding this 
concept and circulating it through AFRO-NETS....

Paul Chinnock
Editor, Africa Health
mailto:paul@fsg.co.uk

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