West African journal of medicine
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Emerging infectious diseases pose a great hazard to public health and the global economy. A novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, causing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), emerged from Wuhan, China, in December 2019. Since then, it has spread globally causing a global health emergency of inconceivable magnitude, with significant morbidity and mortality. There is the need for clinicians and health care providers to understand and gain knowledge of the different aspects of the disease as it evolves. ⋯ There is urgent need for potent antivirals and vaccine to manage those infected with COVID 19 and prevent infection. Global efforts need to be unified in combating this public health emergency and flattening the curve of spread.
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It is a professional obligation for health researchers to investigate and communicate their findings to the medical community. The writing of a publishable scientific manuscript can be a daunting task for the beginner and to even some established researchers. Many manuscripts fail to get off the ground and/or are rejected. ⋯ An important injunction is to make the writing precise, clear, parsimonious, and comprehensible to the intended audience. The purpose of this article is to arm and encourage potential biomedical authors with tools and rules that will enable them to write contemporary manuscripts, which can stand the rigorous peer review process. The expectations of standard journals, and common pitfalls the major elements of a manuscript are covered.
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Hernia surgery is one of the most frequent procedures done by surgeons - paediatric and general surgeons -in the African continent. ⋯ Based on the clinical studies reviewed, there is a large disease burden of inguinal hernias in Africa. There is, understandably, also a limited surgical capacity to reduce this burden. The authors advocate the formation of an African Hernia Society to partner with corporate and international organisations to make hernias a public health problem and to attempt to determine, using population-based studies, the actual burden of the disease in Africa and then to take modern hernia surgery to most parts of the continent to help reduce the hernia burden, especially its complications.
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The quality of a medical publication rests as much on the research paper as on the literature search prior to writing for publication. The art of literature search and its importance to the various steps in scientific writing have been emphasised in this paper. ⋯ It should guide trainee specialists or new entrants, who must do literature search towards publishing research works for earning promotion, advancing knowledge, obtaining grants and fellowship awards, into the "publish or perish" syndrome existing in academic institutions. The current trend of electronic writing has called for a new style of referencing in medical publications, which has been suggested in this paper.