Introducing medical parasitology at the University of Makeni, Sierra Leone

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version.Capacity building in Sierra Leone (West Africa) is critical to prevent potential future outbreaks similar to the 2013-16 Ebola outbreak that had devastating effects for the country and its poorly developed healthcare system. De Montfort University (DMU) in the United Kingdom (UK), in collaboration with parasitologists from the Spanish Universities of San Pablo CEU and Miguel Hernández de Elche, is leading a project to build the teaching and research capabilities of medical parasitology at the University of Makeni (UniMak, Sierra Leone). This project has two objectives: a) to introduce and enhance the teaching of medical parasitology, both theoretical and practical; and b) to implement and develop parasitology research related to important emerging human parasites such as Cryptosporidium spp. due to their public health significance. Two UniMak academics, hired to help initiate and implement the research part of the project, shared their culturally sensitive public health expertise to broker parasitology research in communities and perform a comprehensive environmental monitoring study for the detection of different emerging human parasites. The presence of targeted parasites are being studied microscopically using different staining techniques, which in turn have allowed UniMak’s academics to learn these techniques to develop new practicals in parasitology. To train UniMak’s academics and develop both parts of our project, a DMU researcher visited UniMak for two weeks in April 2019 and provided a voluntary short training course in basic parasitology, which is currently not taught in any of their programmes, and was attended by 31 students. These sessions covered basic introduction to medical parasitology and life-cycle, pathogenesis, detection, treatment and prevention of: a) coccidian parasites (Cryptosporidium, Cyclospora and Cystoisospora); b) Giardia intestinalis, Entamoeba and free-living amoebas; c) malaria and d) microsporidia. A theoretical session on common staining techniques was also provided. To facilitate the teaching and learning of these parasites, the novel resource DMU e-Parasitology was used, a package developed by the above participating universities and biomedical scientists from the UK National Health Service (NHS): http://parasitology.dmu.ac.uk/ index.htm. Following the two weeks of training, UniMak’s academics performed different curriculum modifications to the undergraduate programme ‘Public Health: Medical Laboratory Sciences’, which includes the introduction of new practicals in parasitology and changes to enhance the content of medical parasitology that will be subjected to examination. Thus, a new voluntary practical on Kinyoun stain for the detection of coccidian parasites was introduced in the final year module of ‘Medical Bacteriology and Parasitology’; eighteen students in pairs processed faecal samples from pigs provided by the Department of Agriculture and Food Security from a nearby farm. Academics at UniMak used the Kinyoun staining unit (available at http://parasitology.dmu.ac.uk/learn/lab/Kinyoun/story_html5.html; [1]) to deliver this practical. Although our project is at a preliminary stage, it has been shown to be effective in promoting the introduction and establishment of medical parasitology at UniMak and could be viewed as a case-study for other universities in low-income countries to promote the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and improve public health understanding of infectious diseases

Evaluation of a novel digital environment for learning medical parasitology.

open access articleEukaryotic parasites represent a serious human health threat requiring health professionals with parasitology skills to counteract this threat. However, recent surveys highlight an erosion of teaching of parasitology in medical and veterinary schools, despite reports of increasing instances of food and water borne parasitic infections. To address this we developed a web-based resource, DMU e-Parasitology®, to facilitate the teaching and learning of parasitology, comprising four sections: theoretical; virtual laboratory; virtual microscopy; virtual clinical case studies. Testing the package was performed using a questionnaire given to ninety-five Pharmacy students in 2017/18 to assess effectiveness of the package as a teaching and learning tool. 89.5% of students reported appropriate acquisition of knowledge of the pathology, prevention and treatment of some parasitic diseases. 82.1% also welcomed the clinical specialism of the package as it helped them to acquire basic diagnostic skills, through learning infective features/morphology of the parasites

Vol. 56, No. 3, pp 492-566

Programme de l’année 2012-2013 : I. Particularismes régionaux dans les inscriptions sur bronze des Shang et des Zhou (env. XIIIe-IIIe s. av. J.-C.) : le cas du Henan ; partie 3 : Sanmenxia. — II. Initiation à la lecture de documents anciens : les inventaires funéraires (Ve s. av. J.-C. - IIIe s. apr. J.-C.)

Vol. 43, No. 1, pp 1-60

Jean-Richard Cytermann, professeur associé 1. Enjeux internationaux et européens de l’éducation Le débat sur l’école est resté en France très longtemps dans l’ignorance des débats et des réformes engagées dans les autres pays développés mais commence maintenant à prendre en compte des éléments comparatifs. Les raisons de cet intérêt renouvelé pour le comparatif en éducation sont multiples. Elles tiennent d’abord aux développements des comparaisons et évaluations internationales, notamment cel..

Vol. 62, No. 4, pp 497-571

Dear all, The videos of the presentations of the Copenhagen DAMIN meeting on "Mints, Technology and Coin Production" (May 2015) are now on line. It represents 2 days of discussions. You can find all the videos on the DAMIN site www.anr-damin.net. The video section also contains the videos of the previous meetings. The proceedings are available at http://www.moneta.be/volumes/moneta_191.htm Best wishes Georges Depeyrot, Directeur de recherche UMR 8546 (CNRS - Ecole Normale Superieure) Moneta h..

Vol. 42, No. 3, pp 280-345

Olivier Roy, directeur d’études Le séminaire a été consacré à la méthodologie de la recherche en Asie centrale. Nous avons développé une réflexion sur l’islam et l’anthropologie politique des sociétés d’Asie centrale, centrée sur les effets de la « politisation » au sens fort du terme, c’est-à-dire de la reformulation des relations supposées traditionnelles de pouvoir et d’expression religieuse dans le cadre du développement d’une instance étatique et d’une légitimité nationale voire national..

Vol. 30, No. 5, pp 277-310

Pratiques médiévales de l'écrit Séminaires-conférences 2015-2016 Séminaires-conférences organisées par le Centre « Pratiques médiévales de l’écrit » de l’Université de Namur. Les séances se tiendront de 16h à 18h dans le local L34 (Séminaire d’Histoire) de la Faculté de Philosophie et Lettres de l’Université de Namur (61, rue de Bruxelles – 5000 Namur). Entrée libre Contact :[email protected] Programme Source de l'information : http://blogdurmblf.blogspot.fr/2015/10/cycle-de-confe..

Vol. 43, No. 5, Supplement

On december 1st 2014, FORCCAST organized a new role game day for 40 students enrolled in the energy branch of the public affairs master's degree at Sciences Po. This time, it focused on the challenges brought by the energy transition of the Grand Paris. Based on a preliminary inquiry led by the 3 organizers Nicolas Benvegnu, Henri Landes and Johann Margulies, 35 role sheets and a whole scripting was specifically created for the occasion. All through the day, the students were projected into a..