[Covid-19 in Côte d'Ivoire (March 2020 - April 2021) a year under the seal of the Coronavirus]. / La Covid-19 en Côte d'Ivoire (mars 2020 - avril 2021) une année sous le sceau du coronavirus.

After a year of coronavirus epidemic, Côte d'Ivoire is completing a third wave of Covid-19. Although the epidemic has been confined mainly to Greater Abidjan, thanks in particular to the isolation measures imposed on the Ivorian economic capital, the impact of the health crisis has nevertheless been marked. Like other West African countries, Côte d'Ivoire did not experience the epidemic tsunami that some predicted in March 2020, but more than 45 000 cases and nearly 300 deaths have been reported, although these figures underestimate the epidemiological reality. With the advent of vaccination, Côte d'Ivoire hopes to control the epidemic, but the possible circulation of variants, particularly South African variants, and the difficulties in obtaining vaccine doses are challenges that the Ivorian health authorities will have to overcome. The resilience of the population has been significant during this crisis, illustrating the ability of Ivorians to withstand the impact of this crisis.

Pierre Richet (1904-1983), fighting onchocerciasis and totalitarism.

While Eugène Jamot's name is associated with the combat against sleeping sickness, Pierre Richet is permanently linked to the battle against river blindness, which he first reported in 1936 in two neighboring households in Garango (Burkina Faso). Onchocerciasis remained a continuous interest, through his last article "The OCCGE and Onchocerciasis", written in 1983. Nonetheless over the course of these five decades, Richet's trajectory was far from that of a specialist dedicating his life to a single disease. After a decade essentially spent fighting trypanosomiasis, came a decade of war in which the specialist in endemism joined the Free French Army and put his organizational know-how at General Lerclerc's disposal, from Morocco to Indochina, via Germany. On his return to Africa in 1953, he extended the principle of mobile teams to the other major endemic diseases accessible to treatment and to vaccines. Richet organized first the combat against leprosy and launched vaccination programs. In 1955, he returned to the battle against onchocerciasis and deployed the first large-scale insecticide program in Chad. The intermediate term failure of this prototype fermented his scientific, interdisciplinary, and organizational thought, which flourished at Bobo-Dioulasso. At the dawn of the independence of French-speaking African countries, and against the political tides of the time, he obtained in 1960 the creation of a supranational organization, the OCCGE, common to 8 countries of West Africa, and he headed it for a decade. Drawing lessons from the past and in the absence of effective pharmaceutical treatment, Richet the physician played the entomological card with one hand, with technical support from Orstom (IRD); this detailed work enabled the development of a strategy. With the other hand, he played the multilateral card, which led in 1974 to the launching of the extraordinary Onchocerciasis Control Program (OCP). If it is Jamot who awakened Africa, Richet is the person who restored its view but also millions of hectares of cultivable land.

Management of scorpion envenomation at the Faya-Largeau medical post, February-June, 2014.

Scorpion envenomation is common in northern Chad and associated with a high lethality rate. We report the management of 16 cases of scorpion envenomation in 2014 at our Faya-Largeau medical post. Our clinical experience revealed dissociated muscarinic symptoms in patients treated early in contrast to those treated later, who presented cardiogenic shock. In the absence of antivenom, patients with an isolated muscarinic syndrome received small doses of atropine, and their signs and symptoms improved afterwards. Although the use of atropine is controversial, the question here is about using it to treat muscarinic symptoms of scorpion envenomation in the absence of severe hypertension and with no signs of heart failure.

[HIV treatment by ARV in resource-poor francophone countries]. / Le traitement du VIH par les antirétroviraux dans les pays francophones à ressources limitées.

At the last United Nations General Assembly, an ambitious target has been set for HIV treatment: ending AIDS as a public health threat by 2030. This article proposes to review the situation of HIV treatment in francophone limited resources settings and the challenges faced by those countries. It also proposes innovative actions that should be set up urgently to increase ART coverage towards scaling up.

[Alain Georges: in the footsteps of Louis Pasteur and Eugène Jamot]. / Alain Georges : sur les traces de Louis Pasteur et d'Eugène Jamot.

The biography of the physician general Alain Jean Georges (1946-2012) shows the exceptional career of a military physician-clinical pathologist specialized in tropical medicine and educated at the Navy Health School in Bordeaux and the Pharo School in Marseille. He completed his education at the Institut Pasteur de Paris in courses still conducted in the spirit of those taught by Louis Pasteur. In 1979, he became director of the Pasteur Institute of Bangui, following in the steps of Eugène Jamot, in the long tradition of military doctors from the Institut Pasteur overseas network committed to a career in Africa. For more than 12 years, Alain Georges directed the Pasteur Institute of Bangui, one of the last citadels of French postcolonial military medicine, in a very personal and charismatic style. He was thus a pioneer in research about both AIDS in Africa and hemorrhagic fevers. His methods were widely misunderstood later as the traditional networks of French biomedical research in its former African colonies modernized and opened internationally, including to national elites. Alain Georges was probably one of the last important figures of the golden age of French colonial medicine.

[Alexandre Yersin (1863-1943), explorer and a founding scientist of the Pasteur Institutes]. / Alexandre Yersin (1863-1943), explorateur et pastorien.

2013 was the year to celebrate Yersin: the 150th anniversary of his birth and the 70th anniversary of his death. Beyond the images usually attached to the memory of this doctor who discovered the bubonic plague bacillus (in Hong Kong in 1894), the author seeks to introduce Yersin, the man, as an explorer curious about his environment rather than a scientist concerned with honors and public recognition. Alexandre Yersin is an atypical figure in the universe of Pasteur, his collaborators, students, and followers. Although he began his career working with Louis Pasteur following the development of the vaccine against rabies, in 1885, the call of the sea led him to quit the laboratory on rue Ulm to, he said, "explore new lands". He worked for the Messageries maritimes merchant shipping company. In Saigon, he met Albert Calmette, who convinced him to join the newly created Colonial Army Medical Corps. In 1892 in Nha-Trang, Yersin set up a bacteriology laboratory in a straw hut; it subsequently became the first Pasteur Institute in Indochina, the starting point of a network of research laboratories. During the bubonic plague epidemic that raged in Hong Kong, Yersin succeeded in isolating its causal agent, surprising even himself by the ease with which he did so. He was 30 years old then, but what could have been the start of a prestigious career, crowned with honors, was spent instead at the service of the local populations. His exploration of the Vietnam highlands gave Yersin the occasion to cultivate and reveal a prodigious eclecticism and his profound humanism. He led three explorations in unknown regions of Annam and contributed to the development of this country by his social, educational, medical, and economic approach, entirely dedicated to aiding the indigenous populations. Yersin never left Vietnam again. He worked as an astronomer and agronomist (introducing the cultivation of cinchona (source of quinine) and rubber trees in the country) - always close to the population. He is buried at Nha-Trang; the Vietnamese continue to honor his memory fervently.

[History of malaria control in the French armed forces: from Algeria to the Macedonian front during the first World War]. / Histoire de la lutte contre le paludisme dans l'armée française : de l'Algérie à l'Armée d'Orient pendant la Première Guerre mondiale.

The French joint military health corps has long experience in malaria control. Many military physicians played an essential role in the 19th century: Maillot revolutionized malaria treatment by using quinine during the conquest of Algeria, and Laveran discovered the causal parasite (the genus Plasmodium) there. This experience continued under the direction of Laveran and the Sergent brothers on the eastern front in Greek Macedonia during World War I. The vast coordinated control plan established on this front from 1917 delivered the French infantrymen from malaria and led to victory over the Bulgarian forces, which capitulated in September 1918.

[Study of morbidity in Libreville (Gabon) in 2008]. / Étude de la morbidité exprimée à Libreville (Gabon) en 2008.

We studied population morbidity in three neighborhoods in Libreville (Gabon), selected to represent the city center, the areas bordering the suburbs, and the areas in between. We surveyed 601 households and found that at least one resident was ill in 35% of the households. Malaria remains the leading cause of morbidity in all three districts, followed by fevers and diarrhea. Thus, the causes of morbidity in the general population with Libreville in 2008 matched those of hospital morbidity at the national level, where malaria remains the leading cause of medical visits.

[Jamot through Bado's eyes]. / Jamot vu par Bado.

The author reviews a biography published in 2011 of Dr. Eugene Jamot (1879-1937), a colonial army physician who devoted 25 years of his life to the fight against sleeping sickness in Africa. In this book, which includes previously unpublished information, the Burkinabe author describes the breakthroughs that tropical medicine has made against human African trypanosomiasis, particularly in Cameroon. He also highlights the interpersonal conflicts with the colonial administration that punctuated Jamot's life in Africa. This article describes the circumstances of the discovery of Dr. Jamot's private papers in 1999 and the insight that these documents provide into the personality of this illustrious army doctor.

[Docteur Emily, I presume ?]. / Docteur Emily, I presume ?

Dr Jules Emily, health corps doctor in the French Colonial Troops, is a prominent figure in the history of tropical medicine, even though no major discovery is attributed to him, nor any invention. He was however a privileged witness to a crucial episode of the colonial history of the continent of Africa, of which left a detailed description: the Marchand mission, and its great feat, the taking of Fachoda. Beyond this famous event, J. Emily's writings also illuminate the life of a colonial doctor at that time, a dense life, made up of discoveries and unceasing activities, filled by providing medical care for military personnel as well as for the populations administered by the colony. A life "in which a curious person, exercising initiative and practicing with passion his daily medical-tropical tasks, can have a beneficial role in improving the health of the people under his responsibility", as another colonial doctor, Dr Abbatucci, reported in 1927.

[Albert Calmette (1863-1933). Description of the BCG vaccine inventor's stay in Gabon]. / Albert Calmette (1863-1933) quand l'inventeur du BCG était au Gabon.

The purpose of this article is to describe Albert Calmette's stay in Gabon from October 1886 to November 1887. During his year in Africa, this illustrious French navy physician who was to invent the BCG vaccine against tuberculosis was keenly interested in malaria and sleeping sickness.