Public health students begin new partnerships in Uganda
by Sally Crocker
Scientists have long recognized the connection between diseases in animals and diseases in people.
Tuberculosis, brucellosis and African sleeping sickness, for example, are common infections passed from livestock to individuals in some Third World countries.
So when Katherine Fogelberg, DVM, PhD, with the UNTHSC School of Public Health, announced a practice experience opportunity in Uganda to her students, best friends Conner Carlsen, Jordan Killion and Haylea Stuteville decided right away to apply. All three are Master of Public Health in Epidemiology students planning to graduate in May.
Dr. Fogelberg, Assistant Professor of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences and a veterinarian, was asked by the international Veterinarians Without Borders to join the University of Georgia, University of California-Davis and Makerere University-Uganda in a new partnership adding a first-time public health perspective to veterinary efforts of assistance.
“It was inspiring to work on the ‘people’ side of zoonotic disease issues,” Carlsen said. “This is where public health and veterinary medicine come together, because so many illnesses in cows, sheep, goats and other animals can be passed on to people, making testing, education and preventive efforts so critical in remote areas like those we visited.”
The students went house to house with a translator to inform communities about free testing available to families.
“We learned to be flexible,” Stuteville said. “It was all about adapting to the environment and the local culture. Sometimes the heat reached 102 degrees. Sometimes the generator went out, and we lost power to the microscopes and equipment. Sometimes we worked from the car. We were able to see firsthand what we had only read about or covered before in class.”
“So many people wanted to be tested,” she said. “There were households where we walked in and found 30 to 40 people waiting, whether or not they were from the same family.”
Next steps following testing will include education, which often starts in the schools.
Students learn and then teach their parents about prevention. “They can become the generation that makes change,” Killion said.
For UNT Health Science Center, the journey has just begun, as two other public health professors and several students will be picking up where this group started, taking trips of their own over the spring and summer months.
For Carlsen, Killion and Stuteville, the experience was a chance to see the great impact that public health initiatives can have on a community.
“The most rewarding aspect was to see how regardless of living conditions and how much or how little these people had, they were still so thankful and welcoming,” Stuteville said. “It meant a lot to be able to help make a difference.”
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