African Health Sciences is an open access, free online, internationally refereed journal publishing original articles on research, clinical practice, public health, policy, planning, implementation and evaluation, in the health and related sciences relevant to Africa and the tropics. African Health Sciences acknowledges support provided by the African Health Journals Partnership Project that is funded by the US National Institutes of Health (through the National Library of Medicine and the Fogarty International Center) and facilitated by the Council of Science Editors.