A report on health services in Africa published by the International Finance Corporation reveals that the demand for health care is expected to double in the next five years, bringing numerous opportunities but also challenges on the continent that is already enveloped by a fair share of ills.

Years of neglect towards the health sector seen in most African countries have resulted into decay especially in the government-run hospitals.

Poor pay coupled with absence of equipment in rural areas and difficulties faced by private health

Until now, the government of Uganda has been seen as taking a soft stance on the tobacco industry and tobacco smoking in general. But this may be about to change with the new stringent requirements regarding the display of anti-smoking warnings.

The Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS) has informed importers, manufacturers to display a new more visible warning on cigarette packets that reads: "Cigarette smoking causes lung cancer, heart diseases and death."

UNBS has already published the warning in the government gazette and it is expected to be on the packets effective September 1, 2010.

It is only a few years since Makerere University introduced major changes in the way it teaches medical students but the development has caused serious concern among parents, former students and other stakeholders.

While at a recent function, Ambassador Alphonse Oseku, a senior citizen and a former Ugandan envoy to Geneva [Switzerland] expressed worry about what he called a 'time bomb' in reference to the recent changes in the way future doctors, nurses and pharmacists are being trained.

Ambassador Oseku particularly attacked what he called a shift from the traditional way of teaching where lecturers stand before students in a class every day to the now adopted system of encouraging students to

Jolly Ninshima (not real name) is now resigned to her fate. Everyday she has to cut off her hair from the head, owing to the drugs she took a few months ago to enhance her looks.

But even with this obviously cumbersome routine, Jolly considers herself lucky because she was ableto stop stray hair from growing allover her body which was the case in the few months following the pills!

Jolly is one of the growing numbers of Ugandans suffering from weird and sometimes deadly trauma arising from the urge to enhance their beauty by taking pills that stimulate hormones to enlarge their breasts, grow hair or hips?