This review documents the status of AMR education and awareness in the WHO African region, as well as specific initiatives by its member states in implementing education and awareness interventions, as a strategic objective of the Global Action Plan on AMR, i.e., improve knowledge and understanding on AMR through effective communication, education, and training. A systematic search was conducted in Google Scholar, PubMed, and African Journals Online Library according to Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses (PRISMA) guidelines, for articles published in English. Retrieval and screening of articles was performed using a structured search protocol following a pre-set inclusion/exclusion criterion. Eighty-five published articles reporting 92 different studies from 19 Member States met inclusion criteria and were included in the final qualitative synthesis. Nigeria (21) and Ethiopia (16) had most of the studies, while the rest were distributed across the remaining 17 Member States. The majority of the articles were on knowledge, attitude, and practices with regard to AMR and antimicrobial use and most of them documented a general lack and suboptimal knowledge, poor attitude and practices, and widespread self-medication. This review shows low levels of knowledge of AMR coupled with extensive misuse of antimicrobial medicines by different target audiences. These findings underscore the urgent need for enhanced and context-specific educational and positive behavioural change interventions.

Monkeypox (Mpox), caused by monkeypox virus (MPXV), has shifted from an endemic zoonosis in Central and West Africa to a pathogen of global public health significance. Two World Health Organization (WHO) Public Health Emergencies of International Concern were declared and subsequently lifted. Clade Ib has continued to emerge in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and neighboring countries, recombinant MPXV strains have been detected, and inequities in access to diagnostics, vaccines, and therapeutics persist. These factors need critical synthesis to inform clinical practice and public health preparedness. This paper reviewed MEDLINE, Embase, WHO situation reports, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Prevention surveillance bulletins, prioritizing peer-reviewed literature and official reports, with preprints identified where cited. MPXV comprises two major clades with distinct epidemiological, clinical, and virological profiles. Clade Ib shows apolipoprotein B mRNA editing enzyme catalytic subunit 3 consistent mutational signatures indicating sustained human adaptation, and has driven a large ongoing outbreak in Central and East Africa. Clade IIb drove the 2022 global outbreak, predominantly through sexual contact among men who have sex with men. Diagnosis relies on polymerase chain reaction of lesion specimens, with whole genome sequencing needed for subclade and recombinant characterization. Tecovirimat has shown no significant clinical benefit in randomized trials for clade I disease, leaving treatment guidance unresolved. JYNNEOS offers approximately 82% pre-exposure effectiveness against clade IIb, though direct clade Ib effectiveness data remain limited, and equitable access to countermeasures in high-burden African settings remains critically inadequate. Priorities include strengthened genomic surveillance in Africa, expanded access to JYNNEOS, and urgent clade Ib-specific effectiveness data.

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a major global health threat that erodes the effectiveness of antibiotics and increases morbidity, mortality, and healthcare costs. Updated forecasts project that bacterial AMR could directly cause approximately 39 million deaths between 2025 and 2050, with annual deaths rising from 1.14 million in 2021 to an estimated 1.91 million in 2050; earlier economic modelling placed the cumulative cost of unchecked resistance at up to 100 trillion United States dollars. These figures underscore the need for sustainable alternatives to conventional antibiotics. This review synthesizes current evidence on non-antibiotic strategies, including bacteriophages, antimicrobial peptides, CRISPR-based antimicrobials, microbiome modulation, host-directed therapies, nanotechnology, and artificial-intelligence-driven drug discovery. We searched more than one hundred peer-reviewed studies, clinical trial reports, primary epidemiological analyses, and international policy and regulatory documents to evaluate therapeutic mechanisms, clinical progress, and implementation barriers, with particular attention to which strategies suit personalized, patient-specific application and which are more amenable to standardized mass production. Bacteriophages and antimicrobial peptides show potent broad-spectrum activity with reduced resistance selection pressure, CRISPR-based approaches enable precise pathogen targeting, and microbiome therapies restore colonization resistance. Clinical translation, however, is hindered by inconsistent regulatory frameworks, limited manufacturing scalability, incomplete safety profiles, and constrained funding in low-resource settings. Mitigating the AMR crisis will require a coordinated, multidisciplinary response grounded in the One Health paradigm, emphasizing antimicrobial stewardship, equitable global access to emerging therapeutics, and sustained investment in translational research.