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Students to describe their research on international health issues

They traveled to countries as far-flung as Madagascar, Poland, Peru and Vietnam doing research on health concerns ranging from hookworm infection to childhood pneumonia to the care of AIDS patients to tuberculosis.

The students from the Schools of Medicine and Nursing who spent this summer abroad as 1996 Wilbur G. Downs International Health Travel Fellows will discuss the results of their research projects on Wednesday, Oct. 16.

The event, sponsored by the Committee on International Health, will begin at 4 p.m. with a poster session in the first-floor lobby of the Jane Ellen Hope Building, 315 Cedar St. At 5 p.m., three of the Downs Fellows will discuss their projects in Rm. 110. This will be followed by a wine and cheese reception at 6 p.m. The public is invited.

The Downs Fellowships were established in 1966 as a tribute to Dr. Wilbur G. Downs, a physician and expert on tropical and infectious diseases, who believed that students should "learn by doing." The grants support students who undertake research on medical and public health problems in developing countries. As part of the fellowship experience, the students experience the unique cultural characteristics f the country in which they live and work.

This year's Downs Fellows and their research projects are:

• Kathryne Baisley, a student in the department of epidemiology and public health EPH -- Sero-epidemiology of Oropouche in a jungle community in the Amazon Basin of Peru.
• Anna Bloxham, a medical school student -- Health-focused anthropological comparison of the indigent patients and the future physicians in Bangladesh.
• Kenneth Harris, a medical school student -- Molecular epidemiology of Myobacterium tuberculosis in Tamil Nadu, India.
• Nora Labiano-Abello, an EPH student -- Pediatric hookworm infection in northern Argentina and Paraguay.
• Pia MacDonald, an EPH student -- The effects of irrigation on the incidence of malaria in Sanliurfa Province, Turkey.
• Asifa Nurani, an EPH student -- Perinatal mortality in maternal homes located in Karachi and Hyderabad, Pakistan.
• Amy Nussbaum, a medical school student -- Management of childhood pneumonia in children under two in Nuwakot, Nepal.
• Moira O'Neill, a nursing school student -- Feasibility for home-care services for HIV-AIDS patients in Gdansk, Poland.
• Veronica Pinell, an EPH student -- Malaria, pregnancy and birth in a rural area of Antsirabe-Miandrivazo in Madagascar.
• Theodore Ruel, a medical school student -- Endosymbiont infections and associated cyctoplasmic incompatibility in tse-tse flies in Kenya.
• Darcy Thompson, a medical school student -- Clinical testing of the Chembio Tuberculosis STAT-PAK, a new serological test for antibodies, in Peru.
• Obinwanne Ugwonali, a medical school student -- Incidence and risk factors for multiple births in southwestern Nigeria.
• Lara Vu, an EPH student -- Promoting the status of Vietnamese women: evaluation of a rural district hospital under the framework of the Vietnam national family planning program.