Africa

===Health===
[[File:HIV in Africa 2011.svg|thumb|upright=1.1|Prevalence of HIV/AIDS in Africa, total (% of population ages 15–49), in 2011 ([[World Bank]])
{| style="width:100%;"
|-
| valign=top |
{{legend|#2b0000|over 15%}}
{{legend|#800000|5–15%}}
{{legend|#d40000|2–5%}}
{{legend|#ff2a2a|1–2%}}
{{legend|#ff9955|0.5-1%}}
{{legend|#ffb380|0.1–0.5%}}
{{legend|#b9b9b9|not available}}
|}]]

More than 85% of individuals in Africa use traditional medicine as an alternative to often expensive allopathic medical health care and costly pharmaceutical products. The [[Organisation of African Unity|Organization of African Unity]] (OAU) Heads of State and Government declared the 2000s decade as the African Decade on [[African traditional medicine]] in an effort to promote The WHO African Region's adopted resolution for institutionalizing traditional medicine in health care systems across the continent.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Kofi-Tsekpo |first1=Mawuli |title=Editorial: Institutionalization of African Traditional Medicine in Health Care Systems in Africa |journal=African Journal of Health Sciences |date=11 February 2005 |volume=11 |issue=1 |pages=i–ii |doi=10.4314/ajhs.v11i1.30772 |pmid=17298111 }}</ref> Public policy makers in the region are challenged with consideration of the importance of traditional/indigenous health systems and whether their coexistence with the modern medical and health sub-sector would improve the equitability and accessibility of health care distribution, the health status of populations, and the social-economic development of nations within sub-Saharan Africa.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Dunlop |first1=David W. |title=Alternatives to 'modern' health delivery systems in Africa: Public policy issues of traditional health systems |journal=Social Science & Medicine |date=November 1975 |volume=9 |issue=11–12 |pages=581–586 |doi=10.1016/0037-7856(75)90171-7 |pmid=817397 }}</ref>

[[HIV/AIDS in Africa|AIDS in post-colonial Africa]] is a prevalent issue. Although the continent is home to about 15.2 percent of the world's population,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/world_population.htm|title=World Population by continents and countries – Nations Online Project|access-date=18 March 2015|archive-date=5 January 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140105110631/http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/world_population.htm|url-status=live}}</ref> more than two-thirds of the total infected worldwide – some 35 million people – were Africans, of whom 15&nbsp;million have already died.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=Encyclopedia of Africa| first1 = Anthony | last1 = Appiah | first2 = Henry Louis | last2 = Gates | name-list-style = vanc |publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2010|pages=8}}</ref> [[Sub-Saharan Africa]] alone accounted for an estimated 69 percent of all people living with HIV<ref name="2012 Facts">{{Cite web |url=http://www.unaids.org/en/media/unaids/contentassets/documents/epidemiology/2012/gr2012/20121120_FactSheet_Global_en.pdf |title="Global Fact Sheet", Joint United Nations Programme on HIV and AIDS, 20 November 2012 |access-date=18 October 2020 |archive-date=27 March 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140327233932/http://www.unaids.org/en/media/unaids/contentassets/documents/epidemiology/2012/gr2012/20121120_factsheet_global_en.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> and 70 percent of all AIDS deaths in 2011.<ref name="dUNAIDSi ck 2012">{{cite web|title=UNAIDS Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic 2012 | url=http://www.unaids.org/en/media/unaids//documents/epidemiology/2012/gr2012/20121120_UNAIDS_Global_Report_2012_with_annexes_en.pdf | access-date=13 May 2013}}</ref> In the countries of sub-Saharan Africa most affected, AIDS has raised death rates and lowered life expectancy among adults between the ages of 20 and 49 by about twenty years.<ref name=":0" /> Furthermore, the life expectancy in many parts of Africa has declined, largely as a result of the HIV/AIDS epidemic with life-expectancy in some countries reaching as low as thirty-four years.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Oxford Encyclopedia of The Modern World|last=Stearns|first=Peter N. | name-list-style = vanc |publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2008|pages=556}}</ref>