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Background: Mental Health Legislation plays an important role in the promotion and protection of the rights of persons living with mental illness and mental disability. Many Countries are making attempts to bring these legislations in line with the major international guidelines like the WHO-RB. Zambia’s Mental Health Act No.6 of 2019 challenges the community, caregivers, mental health practitioners and policy makers to rethink the ‘Medical Model’ of Mental illness and existing services. Objective: The objective of this study was to analyse and compare Zambia’s Mental Health Act No.6 of 2019 and the WHO-RB. Method: This study was a comparative analysis of two documents: Zambia’s Mental Health Act No.6 of 2019 and the WHO-RB, which contains a checklist of human rights specifications that are expected to be met at national level. This study scrutinized each component on the checklist and established the pertinent areas in Zambia’s Mental Health Act No.6 of 2019 that relate to each component of WHO-RB. Results: The Zambia’s Mental Health Act No.6 of 2019 attempted to include many legislative issues from the WHO-RB checklist. Analysis of the 27 checklist items showed that 44.4% (12/27) were adequately covered, 33.3% (9/27) were covered to some extent with missing and problematic areas clearly outlined for each of these items and 22.2% (6/27) components from the WHO-RB checklist were not covered at all in Zambia’s Mental Health Act No.6 of 2019. The items not covered at all related to rights of families or other carers, involuntary treatment in the community setting, police responsibility, housing for patients with mental illness, social security and protection of vulnerable groups. Conclusion: The Mental Health Act No.6 of 2019 makes an important contribution to mental health legislation in Zambia by bringing about the promotion, protection, respect of the rights and dignity of persons with mental illness. However, some efforts need to be made to respectively amend and include the problematic and completely absent components so as to produce a mental health act that is complete and inclusive.

Background: Antenatal depression is associated with long-term disability in both mothers and new-borns. Inadequate data and research can constrain resource allocation and exacerbate the condition's symptoms.Objective: The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence of prenatal depression and the characteristics associated with it among women receiving prenatal care at Chelstone First Level Hospital in Lusaka.Method: A cross-sectional survey of 281 pregnant women receiving prenatal care at Chelstone First Level Hospital was conducted using systematic random sampling. The Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) was used to assess participants' depression, and related data were collected using a structured, pretested, and interviewer-administered questionnaire.Results: Prenatal depression was identified in 26.3 percent of pregnant women surveyed (95 CI: 21% -32%), with antenatal depression being significantly more prevalent in women who did not have a satisfactory relationship with their partner/significant other (OR=1.70, 95CI: 1.40-3.10). Unemployment was found to be a risk factor for antenatal depression, with a 1.3 (95 CI:1.04-1.5) fold increased risk compared to employed women. Conclusion: Depressive symptoms are common among pregnant women seeking antenatal care in primary care, and unemployment, as well as a lack of relationship satisfaction with the spouse/significant other, increases the risk of depression. Keywords: Antenatal depression; associated factors; depression in pregnancy; depressive symptoms; depression; pregnancy; antenatal care.

Africa accounts for nearly half of all deaths resulting from communicable diseases globally. A deteriorating health system can be attributed to these deaths. Unfortunately, most African countries have some of the weakest health systems. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that strong health systems are critical for the improvement of health outcomes and for accelerating progress towards the achievement of Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) related to health. This has led to the rise of health system strengthening as a political agenda for countries in the WHO African Region. At a time when countries in this region are facing an economic downturn, the novel coronavirus, “severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2)” adds to the challenges faced in health system strengthening. The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has revealed major weaknesses in health systems globally, presenting a major threat to the already fragile health systems in Africa, revealing the urgent need for stronger health systems in Africa. In this paper, we present an updated literature review of the pertinent gaps in Africa’s health systems and synthesized the findings by utilizing the six basic building blocks of health system strengthening (health workforce, access to equipment and essential medicines, service delivery, health information systems, leadership & governance) and other related aspects (health policy, health research, health monitoring and evaluation and disaster preparedness) in the context of COVID-19. Finally, the paper identifies priority strategies for health system strengthening in Africa.

Opioid dependence is a disorder of the central nervous system that results from chronic use of opiates. Opioids cause intense feelings of euphoria, and this is what puts opiate users at risk of recreational use of these substances. There is a desire to increase the dose in order to enhance the effect of opioids, therefore addiction arises, which is a serious medical and social problem. The more opiates come from outside, the less natural opiates are produced, and more opiates are required to create a strong feeling of euphoria, which previously could be achieved with a lower dose. The consequence of a chronic opioid use is the drug tolerance, and abrupt cessation of use causes a serious condition of opioid withdrawal syndrome, indicating the presence of physical dependence. This article describes the experience and the case study of Medication Assisted Therapy (MAT) with buprenorphine and naloxone at Chainama Hills College Hospital in Lusaka, Zambia.