[Medical research in French-speaking Africa: unrecognized research].

A postal survey carried out by TDR (UNDP/World Bank/WHO Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases) on sixty three (63) African medical journals in July 2002 found that the majority of medical and health journals were under-funded, did not publish regularly, lacked high quality articles and standard peer review practice and were mostly invisible to the rest of the international medical community. In French speaking Africa less than ten medical journals publish regularly and only five are indexed in Medline. Ten (10) countries out of twenty three (23) have no medical journal at all. Five thousand six hundred and twelve (5612) articles on French speaking Africa could be retrieved in Medline from 1998 to 2003. Thirty three per cent (33%) of these articles were published in French in ninety four (94) journals while sixty six per cent (66%) were published in English in eight hundred and forty eight (848) journals. Fifteen (15) African medical journals published 8.5% of all these articles and nine international journals specialized in tropical medicine published 19% of them. The rest was published by medical journals of all specialities, mainly American, British and French. This study illustrates the consequences of the lack of local medical journals in Africa. Academic traditions play an important role on the decision of French speaking African researchers to publish outside their country. The impact of African health research on local researchers, health professionals and policy makers in French speaking Africa, all of whom have little access to major international health journals and a poor command of the English language, is questionable. In 2002, TDR facilitated the launching of the Forum of African Medical Editors (FAME) to promote the creation of sustainable, high quality public health and medical journals in Africa in order to encourage African health researchers to publish also for their colleagues in their country.