African Index Medicus--a cooperative undertaking

Although MEDLINE covers many of the significant medical periodical articles published in developed countries, there is still a considerable amount of medical and health documentation from countries outside the major industrialized areas which is not included. This paper outlines various initiatives to address this, and goes on to describe the setting up, on a cooperative basis, of the African Index Medicus, the problems encountered and progress made. 'Even if we should presume that most of the world's valid, important biomedical information originates in the West--and there is evidence (...) to suggest that this is wilful self delusion--what about at least a minority contribution from the rest? The 2% participation in international scientific discourse allowed by Western indexing services is simply too little to account for the scientific output of 80% of the world.'