Dollars and despots
I teach and write about public health in Africa. For years, something about Uganda stumped me.
Since 2000, health services have improved in most African countries, but Uganda's progress lags. Yet Uganda has a remarkable medical history. Well before colonial times, the Baganda, Uganda's largest tribe, could distinguish plague from smallpox; Baganda traditional surgeons performed caesarean sections in the 19th century, when Europeans considered them too difficult and dangerous. During the 1950s and '60s, Ugandans helped pioneer treatment for childhood cancers and malnutrition. When Singapore was looking to reform its health system in the 1960s, it sent a delegation to Uganda.
Today Uganda's health system
