The 60 year old Somali man who recently sat for his final secondary school exam wants to be a doctor

60-year- old Somali student, Ahmed Saney who sat for his final secondary school examination this week wants to be a doctor. His photos while in examination room doing his final paper went viral on social media mainly twitter and facebook with congratulatory messages.

Radio Dalsan team then visited Saney in his school in Balcad outskirts of Mogadishu on Tuesday to document the challenges he is  facing in his dream to be a doctor.

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African creative minds

Yet Another Cameroonian Dies in Thailand

 Another Cameroonian teacher in Thailand who goes by the name Mr Abongwa Terence has been reported dead. He died early on Sunday morning in a motorcycle accident in Trang province of South Thailand.

According to a reliable KDB source who was present at the accident scene, he hit an electric pole as he was returning from a Cameroonian monthly meeting held yesterday which he attended and left early this morning. Investigations on the cause of the accident is still going on.

See what a teacher did to a pupil for mispelling a word in a dictation lesson

An elementary pupil in northern Vietnam was left with bruises on her face and eyes after being hit by her teacher for misspelling in dictation class last Friday April 1st.

Hoang Trong Phu, deputy head of the Bureau of Education and Training in Bat Xat District, Lao Cai Province, confirmed that the incident took place at Phin Ngan Elementary School on Friday, when T., a first grader, misspelled a word in the dictation lesson taught by Tran Thi Thu Tra.

Medical students in Nigeria to spend 11 years in University henceforth - NUC

The National Universities Commission (NUC) has announced that students studying Medicine and Surgery in Nigerian universities will spend 11 years before getting an MBBS degree. The Executive Secretary of the Commission, Prof. Julius Okojie made the declaration in a lecture delivered at the maiden inauguration of the University of Medical Science, Ondo State.

In a lecture titled ‘Development of Medical Education: Prospects and Challenges‘, Okojie, who was represented by the Deputy Executive Secretary of the commission, Prof. Chiedu Mafiana, said increasing the study time was essential to ensure medical students are well prepared for the psychological demands of the game.

A forensic anthropologist used science to draw what he says is the most realistic Jesus

According to medieval artist/scientist, Richard Neave, Jesus is not the white, long-haired, skinny face you've been seeing throughout your entire life.

Iowa State University graduate student searches for plant extracts to treat devastating river blindness in Cameroon

Melanie Abongwa, a graduate assistant in biomedical sciences, collected plants in Cameroon that could lead to new treatments for river blindness. Photo courtesy of Melanie Abongwa

AMES, Iowa – An Iowa State University graduate student has unearthed some promising results in her quest to identify plant extracts to combat a devastating parasitic disease in Cameroon and other African countries.Melanie Abongwa, a graduate assistant in biomedical sciences, collected plants in Cameroon that could lead to new treatments for river blindness. Photo courtesy of Melanie Abongwa. Larger image.

Melanie Abongwa, a graduate assistant in biomedical sciences in the ISU College of Veterinary Medicine who grew up in Cameroon, hopes that her research could help to alleviate the suffering caused by onchocerciasis, a disease sometimes called river blindness caused by parasitic worms.

There’s no vaccine, nor is there an effective treatment to kill the adult worms that cause the disease. But Abongwa is studying a pair of plants native to Cameroon that rural residents have used to alleviate symptoms of the disease for years. Rural residents commonly turn to herbal remedies because of their limited access to modern medicine, but Abongwa said they have no scientific basis to claim how – or even if – the herbal treatments work.

“They don’t know what kind of dose they’re taking, what in the plants is making them better or if the plants may be toxic in other ways,” Abongwa said. “Those were questions that needed to be answered.”

She’s hoping that her research will fill in those gaps and potentially lead to new drugs to treat the disease.
Onchocerciasis can infect up to 90 percent of residents in some villages in rural Cameroon and other areas of sub-Saharan Africa, Abongwa said. The worms are transferred to humans through the bite of blackflies and migrate to the subcutaneous tissue underneath a host’s skin, where they mature and reproduce. The worms can cause a host to experience rashes and unbearable itching and even blindness.

“The burden that this disease imposes on the villages can’t be overstated,” Abongwa said. “The responsibility of taking care of the blind usually falls on the shoulders of children, often girls. That means they have fewer opportunities to go to school or build their own future.”

Graduates from state universities in Cameroon Await Certificates

Most universities are yet to respect the ministerial instruction to issue diplomas instantly.The issue of the instant delivery of diplomas to graduates in the higher education sector has been a quagmire in the lives of millions of Cameroonians who for over two decades have been grappling with testimonials which often meet rejection or doubt in employment or academic circles, both at home and abroad. With so many opportunities squandered and so many dreams unfulfilled, the issue of lack of diplomas has, to an embarrassing extent, thrown discredit to the fruits of Cameroon’s higher education system.

University of Buea Welcomes 8,000 new students

International conferences and the start of the HTTTC Kumba are awaited as innovations.The University of Buea (UB) has entered its second week after opening its doors to 8,000 freshmen last 13 October, 2014 for the academic year 2014-2015. This brings to some 24,000 the total number of students parading UB’s amphitheatres and offices in the 2014/2015 university year.

The University Of Buea is to Graduate 66 Medical Doctors in July 2014

The candidates who constitute the second batch of medical students from the University of Buea successfullydefended their thesis recently.The University of Buea will soon graduate its second batch of medicine students. To this effect, some 66 would-be doctors have concluded their defense of thesis exercise at the Bomaka campus B site of the Faculty of Health Sciences.