By: Jordan Ramirez Puckett (Student at Ohio University)
Ecology Letters cover, October issue, 2019. Picture credits: Esteban Baus
The belief that mosquito-borne disease thrives in the warmest and wettest weather conditions is a common misconception in held in popular culture and literature. While temperature is a key factor in the mosquito lifecycle and the rate of disease transmission, warmer weather does not mean an increase in pathogen transmission in all cases. Through modeling, researchers have shown that the effects of temperature is non-linear. Diseases such as Zika, dengue, and malaria each have their own optimum temperature for transmission. Therefore, the question becomes how global warming will affect the spreading of mosquito-based illnesses.
By Elijah Hendrix (Ohio University student and TDR participant)
Sunset at Loja province, panoramic view of Cariamanga.
I have always felt a connection to service, health, and doing the right thing for the benefit of others and as a Cutler Scholar at Ohio University, I am encouraged to participate in service projects each year and this summer was not the exception. Through the lectures in my public health class and the conversations I had with my professors, I was able to come to the issue of Neglected Tropical Diseases, specifically, Chagas Disease research in Ecuador.
Throughout my participation in the program, I had many reflection opportunities. I am able to sum up my experience in three words: learning, community and service. Before this trip started, I only thought of learning as a one-way street. For example, in school, a professor stands in front of a classroom of 200 people and there is little to no interaction within the flow of information. I was prepared to have small talk with the people of the communities that we would be visiting and teach them what I know. The night before the first day, my cohort and I discussed the importance of sitting back and listening before acting to ensure the most collaboration between our team and the communities. I did not quite understand the meaning of listening first, but I kept an open mind.
By Luis E. Mendoza
Image: hablemosdechagas
Every April 14 the International Day of People Affected by Chagas Disease is celebrated. However, what few know is that this date also commemorates the discovery of this disease by the Brazilian biologist Carlos Chagas.
This article will share relevant information about Chagas disease, as well as collaborative work between the Center for Research on Health in Latin America (CISeAL), from PUCE, and the Infectious and Tropical Diseases Institute (ITDI), from Ohio University in order to prevent and control this disease.
The people affected by Chagas disease will claim this 14th of April as World Chagas Day in the hope of increasing global awareness, and building on the progress already made against this disease, which has been neglected for more than one century.
11 April 2019.
The International Federation of Associations of People Affected by Chagas disease (FINDECHAGAS) has launched an online petition through the platform change.org (Link) in support of the official declaration of April 14th as their World Day. This proposal will be tabled at the 72nd World Health Assembly, to be held in Geneva at the end of May 2019. The particular date has been chosen because on that same day, 110 years ago, the Brazilian doctor Carlos Chagas confirmed the first case of the disease in a child, called Berenice Soares.
The official recognition of this anniversary in the global calendar of World Days will raise the visibility of this global health challenge, which forms part of the list of neglected tropical diseases, according to the classification of the World Health Organization (WHO). FINDECHAGAS aims to engage governments and health decision makers to encourage them to take sustainable political actions in order to overcome numerous barriers regarding access to diagnosis and treatment, as well as to increase visibility and awareness about the stigmatization and discrimination suffered by people affected by the disease.
By Luis E. Mendoza
A recent research of the group of medical entomology from CISeAL, led by Dr. Anita Villacís, has just been published on Parasites & Vectors Journal (BioMed Central). The research (Triatominae: does the shape change of non-viable eggs compromise species recognition?) seeks to offer a new characterization of viable and non-viable eggs of four species of Ecuadorian Triatomines, insects responsible of the transmission of Chagas disease.
December 3, 2018
PUCE students during field trip.
In a coordinated effort between the Public Health Institute, the Center for Research on Health in Latin America and the Nursing and Human Sciences Faculties form PUCE, last November 12 the team began the field work of the project: Determinants of malnutrition in children under 5 years of the Ecuadorian indigenous population; whose second phase will run until December 14, 2018 in five cantons of Chimborazo; Riobamba, Alausí, Guamote, Guano and Colta.
November 29, 2018
MSc. Sofía Ocaña and Sarah Vaca in company of UTMACH students.
From November 22th to 25th a field trip to the city of Machala was carried out, as part of the project: “Evaluation of the resistance to deltamethrin in natural populations of Anopheles albimanus, malaria vector, and its relationship with the use of pyrethroid insecticides in the southwestern coast of Ecuador”. The team led by MSc. Sofía Ocaña traveled to El Oro province and collaborated with students from UTMACH.
