The Mututho law, named after the legislator who crafted it, John Mututho, is credited for a 90 percent drop in alcohol-related deaths in Kenya.

“Even when we say we have succeeded up to that level, we are also saying we have failed 10 percent, so the age of drinking will be 21. We are amending the law,” Mututho said.

Earlier this year, Zambia banned the manufacture and sale of spirits in relatively cheap small plastic sachets, which it blamed for increasing alcohol abuse by young people. Zambia’s health department secretary told Reuters that alcohol-related road accidents and health problems are increasingly a concern.

In Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation and a huge beer market, alcohol regulation does exist but critics say it is loosely enforced.

Adeline Osakwe, deputy director at the Nigeria Food and Drug Administration, said the country ensures consumers are aware of alcohol content through product labeling. It also regulates alcohol advertising.

“For TV commercials, as long as it will not lead people to abuse alcohol, we give approvals,” Osakwe said.

HOME-BREW TO HEINEKEN

For years poor Africans were limited to home-brew sorghum or maize beer, sometimes made with dangerous ingredients such as battery acid to increase the potency.

Commercial alcohol is now widely available in most African states and premium brands such as Johnny Walker whisky or Heineken beer are increasingly in reach of the average drinker.

Rising incomes have also encouraged conspicuous consumption of premium brands. Even in Worcester’s gritty nightclubs, some tables are weighed down by bottles of pricey spirits such Scotch whiskies Chivas Regal and Glenfiddich.

Drinks companies say commercially produced alcohol is safer than home-brews. “The alternative is that lower income people who wish to consume liquor will buy illicit and potentially dangerous alcohol,” said Vincent Maphai, executive director of Corporate Affairs at SABMiller’s South African unit.

SABMiller is already offering lower priced beer in order to win over drinkers from the home-brew market, which it says is about four times the $11 billion commercial market.

Higher alcohol taxes, which the South African bill is likely to impose, risk of pushing the poor back to potentially lethal home-brews. Nevertheless, public health officials say governments need to do more to warn about the dangers of alcohol abuse.

BIRTH DEFECTS

Even several months into pregnancy, Johannesburg resident Martha regularly drank until she passed out. She never worried about the effect until her son was born with a hole in his heart. “I would have stopped if I knew that it would harm my baby like this,” said Martha, who declined to give her family name.

Her son, now 12 years old, was diagnosed with fetal alcohol syndrome, an incurable birth defect that has left him with the brain and body of a four-year old.

South Africa has the highest reported number of children with such birth defects: about 122 out of every 1,000 are born with the syndrome, compared with about 8 per 1,000 in the United States, according to South Africa’s Foundation for Alcohol Related Research.

But experts say many Africans, like Martha, don’t get proper education about the dangers of alcohol, especially in rural areas where access to hospitals and clinics is limited.