A remarkable new genus of ant-like Theridiidae (Araneae) from the canopy in Central Africa

Acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) is worldwide, but the clinical and epidemiological pattern of the disease in Africa is different from that in developed areas. "Type 1 AIDS" occurs in industrialized North America and Europe; it has a distinctive sex ratio (16:1) and risk pattern of IV drug use and sexual practices. "Type 2 AIDS" occurs in Third World countries, particularly in eastern, southern, and central Africa. It is characterized by an entirely different sex ratio (1:1) and by distinctively different risk patterns. Both epidemics are caused by the HIV-1 virus. The key concept for understanding the origins of the differences between Type 1 and Type 2 AIDS is the migratory labor system in eastern, central, and southern Africa. This system causes long absences, increased family breakdown, and increased numbers of sexual partners. Historically the organization of this labor market has created a population which suffers from epidemics of sexually transmitted diseases. These historical patterns are presented as evidence for the contemporary transmission of AIDS. When contemporary AIDS and HIV-1 seropositivity prevalence data are examined, a systematic temporal and geographic pattern emerges for the AIDS epidemic in Africa. Despite a paucity of good data, the prevalence data from eastern, central, and southern Africa support the thesis of migrant labor's role in the transmission of AIDS.

Analysis of the determinants of financial inclusion in Central and West Africa

In the recent decades, East African region has been attracting more inflows of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) than Central Africa, while the trend was different for the period before 1990. This study aimed at identifying factors that determine FDI attraction in the two regions using a panel data of six countries (three in Central Africa and other three in East Africa) over the year 1990-2018. We applied the Panel Autoregressive Distributed Lag (P-ARDL) model based on the Pooled Mean Group (PMG) estimation to capture short and long-run relationships amongst variables. Results indicated that in the long-run, infrastructure quality, trade openness and market size explain the attraction of FDI inflows in both Central and East Africa. A comparison of the two regions shows a sharp contrast of factors that attract FDI. While trade openness and natural resources endowment are key factors for Central Africa, infrastructure quality and market size are critical in East Africa. However, resource curse hypothesis has been found in Central Africa since the increase in resource rents decreases the attraction of FDI inflows. Therefore, policies which promote cooperation among countries by increasing the levels of trade, reduce the costs of doing business and invest in infrastructures should be implemented in the two regions.

This paper examines Kaldor’s New War Thesis and locates it in the context of Central and West Africa where a plethora of burgeoning evidence provides ground for its validation. Kaldor notes that New Wars, as she puts it, occur in the era of globalization. The core argument fronted by Kaldor is that New Wars are different from ‘Old Wars’. The paper is thus founded on this central locus and discussions advanced in here are crystalized around this distinction. Drawing evidence from countries located in West and Central Africa, the paper argues the case for the validity of this theory to the African context. It is also fair to point out that Kaldor’s New War Theory does not escape the anxious thrusts of criticism. In spite of this welcome critiques – it is quite evident that it is applicable to the African context and this also erases most of the common arguments that such theories are highly Western or foreign and thus have limited applicability to the African context. The paper provides one of the contemporary contextualization’s of this theory and aims to form a basis to build up more discussions on why Africa still reels from wars and conflicts and the new perspectives that are now applicable. Finally, it is hoped that this discussion provides more documentation and evidence that can support better policy, evidence-based decision making and advance regional peace and security in West and Central Africa and to the rest of the continent.

Patient-reported outcomes with direct-acting antiviral treatment for hepatitis C in West and Central Africa (TAC ANRS 12311 trial)

Introduction: Southern Africa and Central Africa The politics that are reshaping the African continent need to be captured from an historical perspective, integrated with an understanding of the contemporary realities which provide the push and pull factors tugging at the African social fabric. Regional politics clearly are a manifestation of both the old and the new, with a particular salience in Southern and Central Africa. An intriguing aspect of regionalization is that regional blocs are formed often as an attempt to create a political framework for a variety of forms of economic activity. Regionalization has both an external and an internal logic. First, a region in international relations can be a phenomenon imposed from the outside. Regions have formed, for example, in the Cold War context shaped by military or economic alliances. In Africa the external imposition and composition of regions is a phenomenon shaped by the colonial experience, but reinforced during the post colonial period. The notion of a region usually implies some form of territorial contiguity, although regions in Africa have also been delineated along linguistic lines. This arbitrary definition of regions generally has Africa divided into five: East, West, North, South, and Central. Of course the boundaries of these regions do overlap, and it is the troubling and growing spectre of conflict in Central and Southern Africa with which this paper is concerned. The Southern African Development Community (SADC) as a political and economic project will be examined in this context, as well as the evolving notions of security in Southern Africa. The contested boundary between Central and Southern Africa is of particular concern in this paper, focussing on the military intervention of Angola,

This paper analyzed the factors that drive foreign direct investments (FDI) by looking at regional heterogeneity among the five African regions. For the first time, FDI drivers are analyzed for each of the five regions of Africa contrary to previous studies which focused on Africa as a whole. The paper used a panel dataset from 1970 to 2010 of 53 African countries divided into: Central, East, North, Southern, and West Africa. Ordinary least squares (OLS) and generalized method of moments (GMM) techniques are used for the estimations. The main results indicate that: (i) agglomeration has a strong positive relationship with FDI inflows in all the regions except Central Africa. However, in West Africa, the second lag of FDI is significantly negative; (ii) there is a negative relationship between FDI inflows and GDP per capita in all the five regions, but a U‐shaped relationship is observed in Central, North, and West Africa. But GDP growth rate has a strongly positive relationship with FDI inflows in Central Africa but negatively significant in West Africa; (iii) FDI follows domestic investment in East, Southern, and West Africa; (iv) democracy is a major factor in attracting FDI to Southern Africa, being upward concave; (v) infrastructure development has a positive impact on FDI inflows in East and North Africa; (vi) trade openness has a positive relationship with FDI inflows in all the five regions except in East Africa; (vii) inflation deters FDI inflows to East Africa; (viii) the level of urbanization has a strong positive relationship with FDI inflows only in West Africa; (ix) net foreign aid has a negative relationship with FDI inflows to East, North, and Southern Africa; (x) higher life expectancy deters FDI inflows to Central Africa but promotes the same to East and North Africa; (xi) metal production and exportation attract significant FDI to Central Africa while oil production and exportation attract higher FDI to West Africa; (xii) monetary union attracts greater FDI to Central and West Africa; and (xiii) political instability is a strong hindrance to FDI inflows to West Africa.

Climate, African and Beringian subaerial continental shelves, and migration of early peoples

Climate change is expected to significantly impact on the availability of water resources in West and Central Africa through changes in rainfall, temperature and evapotranspiration. Understanding these changes in this region, where surface water is fundamental for economic activity and ecosystem services, is of paramount importance. In this study, we examine the potential impacts of climate variability and change on hydrological systems by the mid-21st century in West and Central Africa, as well as the uncertainties in the different climate-impact modelling pathways. Simulations from nine global climate models downscaled using the Rossby Centre Regional Climate model (RCA4) are evaluated and subsequently bias-corrected using a nonparametric trend-preserving quantile mapping approach. We then use two conceptual hydrological models (GR2M and IHACRES), and a regression-based model built upon multi-timescale sea surface temperatures and streamflow teleconnections, to understand hydrological processes at the subcontinental scale and provide hydrological predictions for the near-term future (2020–2050) under the RCP4.5 emission scenario. The results highlight a zonal contrast in future precipitation between western (dry) and eastern (wet) Sahel, and a robust signal in rising temperature, suggesting an increase in potential evapotranspiration, across the multi-model ensemble. Overall, across the region, a significant increase in discharge (~ + 5%) is expected by the mid-21st century, albeit with high uncertainties reported over most of Central Equatorial Africa inherent to climate models and gridded observation data quality. Interestingly, in this region, teleconnections-based regression models tend to be an alternative to hydrological models.

Post-glacial Permian stratigraphy and geography of southern and central Africa: boundary conditions for climatic modelling

The spread of any infectious disease can be accelerated in a situation of large-scale migration, especially in the face of inadequate facilities to contain the disease. This observation has already been made in Eastern, Central and Southern Africa. The spread of tuberculosis from South Africa to the towns and villages of the neighbouring countries in the fifties and sixties by mine workers who migrated to the South African mines is well documented (Packard 1989). More recently, from the late 70’s to the early 80’s, this pattern of disease spread has occurred again in Eastern and Central Africa with AIDS, fuelled by what Baldo and Cabral (1990) have termed Low Intensity Wars (LIW). Free movement of people, including prostitutes, to where business is profitable, has also been blamed as partly responsible for the high AIDS incidence in the exBritish colonies such as Uganda, Zambia and Tanzania (Konotey-Ahulu 1989). Despite this historical evidence, very little has been done by way of the study of the relationship between migration and AIDS in West Africa until recently (see Painter 1992). Migration and AIDS in West Africa The development of AIDS as a social problem in West Africa occurred several years later than in Eastern and Central Africa, around the mid-eighties. At present the governments in the sub-region have recognized it as a health threat. However, massive mobility of people, which is a common feature in the sub-region, has been observed to have historical pre-eminence over Eastern and Central Africa (Parkin, 1975). Two principal patterns of population movement have been established over the years. The first is the North-South movement within coastal countries of Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, Benin and Nigeria, and the second is the movement over longer distance between the hinterland Sahelian countries in the north (Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad) and the coastal countries to the south. The main feature of the migratory movements in West Africa is that they were male dominated. The migrants were more likely to be young unmarried males and if married, they were more likely to leave their wives behind. Women’s participation in the movement is increasingly becoming important in recent times but as yet their movement seems to be towards a few places in the sub-region (Anarfi 1990). Another feature is its periodic, seasonal nature. This massive, region-wide mobility is strongly linked to the effects of seasonality on the ability of rural dwellers in West Africa to earn the real income that their families need to survive and get ahead (Painter 1992: 3). A situation of seasonally limited opportunities and a scarcity, over a period of 7 to 8 months, related to the rainfall pattern of the Sahelian countries, prevails. Seasonal migration has therefore become a form of strategy to survive harsh conditions imposed by nature. According to Painter (1992) each year, from September through December, hundreds of thousands of men leave their homes in the Sahelian countries in the north and travel to countries along the coast. These men may remain in the coastal countries from four to eight months looking for money, before they return home. It is estimated that from 6 to 16 per cent of the total population of Niger, for example, may be affected each year by seasonal migration. Other studies have observed that men from the Sahelian countries participate in these yearly migrations from 10 to 15 years during their individual lifetimes (Painter 1992). Participating in the migration process has become more or less a way of life for rural households in Sahelian West Africa.

Detecting vulnerability of humid tropical forests to multiple stressors

Imported Plasmodium vivax malaria in France: geographical origin and report of an atypical case acquired in Central or Western Africa

High-resolution analyses of the Mg concentration in authigenic calcite in five cores from Lake Edward provide a water balance history of central equatorial Africa spanning the past 1400 yr. A high ratio of Mg to Ca (%Mg) indicates strong droughts in central Africa during the Little Ice Age (A.D. 1400–1750), in contrast to records from Lake Naivasha, Kenya, which suggest a wet Little Ice Age. This spatial pattern in Africa likely arose due to coupled changes in the high latitudes, the position of the Intertropical Convergence Zone, and the El Nino–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) system. Our results further suggest that the patterns and variability of twentieth-century rainfall in central Africa have been unusually conducive to human welfare in the context of the past 1400 yr.

Since the eradication of smallpox and the subsequent discontinuation of the worldwide smallpox vaccination program, other Orthopoxviruses beside Variola virus have been increasingly representing a risk to human health. To investigate the extent of natural contact with Orthopoxviruses and possible demographic risk factors for such an exposure, we performed a cross-sectional serosurvey of anti-Orthopoxvirus IgG antibodies in West and Central Africa. To this end, people living in forest regions in Côte d’Ivoire (CIV, n = 737) and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (COD, n = 267) were assigned into groups according to their likely smallpox vaccination status. The overall prevalence of anti-Orthopoxvirus antibodies was 51% in CIV and 60% in COD. High rates of seropositivity among the vaccinated part of the population (80% in CIV; 96% COD) indicated a long-lasting post vaccination immune response. In non-vaccinated participants, seroprevalences of 19% (CIV) and 26% (COD) indicated regular contact with Orthopoxviruses. Multivariate logistic regression revealed that the antibody level in the vaccinated part of the population was higher in COD than in CIV, increased with age and was slightly higher in females than males. In the unvaccinated part of the population none of these factors influenced antibody level significantly. In conclusion, our results confirm expectedly high anti-Orthopoxvirus seroprevalences in previously smallpox-vaccinated people living in CIV and the COD but more unexpectedly imply regular contact with Orthopoxviruses both in Western and Central Africa, even in the absence of recognized outbreaks.