Africa needs to set realistic priorities in health research, and also to develop its own capacities and alternative ways for solving its health problems, according to Ali Mohamed Shein, Vice-President of Tanzania. Addressing a meeting of 700 health experts, policy-makers and donor agencies from about 85 countries, Shein said that African countries needed to remind themselves that it was their "own duty and responsibility” to lead the fight against diseases which were weighing them down.