Tag Archives: Sierra Leone

October Student of the Month: From NTD Advocate…to Patient

NTDs, Student Advocacy, , ,

 

Katy on her trip to Sierra Leone -- where she became infected with Hookworm.

Katy on her trip to Sierra Leone — where she became infected with Hookworm.

As END7 expands its outreach to students, we’d like to highlight a different young person every month who has joined our campaign. We are proud to share a reflection from our October Student of the Month, Katy Gorentz, who has been a student advocate for END7 since her freshman year at the University of Notre Dame. After three years of organizing advocacy and fundraising events to fight diseases she had never encountered, Katy experienced the impact of NTDs for herself last summer in Sierra Leone. Here’s her reflection on why she is part of END7:

“As a premed student at the University of Notre Dame, I have had many options for getting involved in health-related clubs. When I stumbled across the ND Fighting NTDs booth at the Activities Fair freshman year, I was impressed at the focus and passion of the students involved. I signed up that night and have been involved ever since!

Looking back I can now see the impact that getting involved in NTD advocacy has had on the course of my own education. Learning about this complex global issue has made me assess my own goals as a future doctor and gain new perspectives that challenge the simple ways in which I used to view health and medicine. END7 gives students the opportunity to learn about the challenges of global health, support one major solution we have at hand, and inspire others to action. It’s a cause that anyone can be passionate about, from a doctor, to an economist, to a young student looking for inspiration.

The impact of NTDs on my college career became much more personal when I experienced this issue from a different perspective this past summer: the patient’s point of view!

katy hookworm

Katy’s foot after she contracted hookworm.

While conducting research on disability in Sierra Leone, I contracted hookworm. I soon recognized the itchy red lines creeping across my feet and up my ankles from pictures of hookworm I had seen in ND Fighting NTDs factsheets and posters, but the series of nurses I encountered did not. It took me weeks to find a doctor who recognized my hookworm and gave me albendazole to treat it. Later, when chatting with a nurse from one of the clinics I visited, she confided that the clinic simply did not have the medication available and wanted to find some before diagnosing the tell-tale lines that were spreading rapidly before my eyes.

The experience drove home the facts about NTDs I had repeated for years: the diseases are so easy to contract, yet finding treatment can be far too difficult – but once you take it, the medication is fast-acting and effective. My experienced echoed the facts I had learned from END7, and made it all the more clear that mobilizing the political will and financing to get NTD medications where they need to be is incredibly important.

katy ndfntdsNow, having experienced an NTD firsthand, I am even more committed to the fight against NTDs! This past week, I have been participating in NTD Awareness Week at Notre Dame, ND Fighting NTDs’ annual campaign to raise NTD awareness on campus and get our peers involved in fundraising and educational events – here’s a picture from our popular Bagel & Brochure giveaway Tuesday morning. Now, with END7’s new personal fundraising pages, I can share my reason for supporting END7 with my friends and family online, too. I just created my own fundraising page, and I am excited for the opportunity to spread the word and involve even more people in the fight against NTDs!”

We are so thankful for the commitment that Katy and the other leaders of have made to this cause. If you are ready to get your school involved in END7’s work, contact student coordinator Emily on or at to learn how you can get started!

How You Helped Us Create 58,365 Success Stories in One Day

Africa, de-worming, Soil Transmitted Helminths (STH), , , ,

 

Photo by Richard Hatzfeld

Photo by Richard Hatzfeld

 

This was not your average school day in Sierra Leone. On July 8th, 2013, thousands of children in the Western Area Rural District arrived to class and received a life-changing packet of pills. While small and unassuming, these pills change lives and have the power to protect each child from debilitating and painful neglected tropical diseases (NTDs).

Sierra Leone is home to some of the poorest health conditions in the world. Intestinal worms affect the entire population of the country – leaving millions of children sick, tired, anemic and undernourished.  But thanks to you, we were able to ensure more than 58,000 of these children remain healthy and protected from NTDs for an entire year! Here’s how we did it together:

This April we showed you the stark human toll an NTD called schistosomiasis has on people in Sierra Leone. Our short film motivated thousands of you to take action by donating money and sharing our message. And with your help, END7 was able to support our partners on the ground in Sierra Leone this July.

 Helen Keller International and the government of Sierra Leone distributed deworming medicine to treat and protect 58,365 children against NTDs. But this was no easy task.

The distribution of deworming medicine took place at multiple schools in the Western Area Rural District of the country. Zonal advisors and teachers across the region had to be trained in pill distribution and mass drug administration (MDA) in order to carry out the task at hand. Once training was completed, the teachers were ready to distribute medicine to thousands of children, and the children were ready to go to school to receive the life-saving medicine on July 8th. Together, we created 58,365 success stories in just one school day.

But that’s not where this story ends. The government of Sierra Leone is continuing the task of treating every child in the country against NTDs. Sierra Leone’s Neglected Tropical Disease Control Program plans to control and eliminate these diseases by 2015 and is working aggressively to do so. Even more, Helen Keller International, who’s been working in the country since 2002, is dedicated to seeing the end of NTDs in the country. Throughout HKI’s 12 years in-country, they’ve completed surveys on the prevalence of NTDs in Sierra Leone in addition to providing training and education so that Community Directed Distributors can distribute multiple treatments at the same time. We know our collective efforts will make a big difference in the lives of children living in Sierra Leone.

The July MDA in Sierra Leone demonstrates the effectiveness of NTD treatment when coordinated through already established institutions like local schools. Because children are so vulnerable to the effects of NTDs, school systems offer a unique and effective way to provide treatment to children who are infected or at risk of infection.

To date, END7  funds have contributed to several school-based deworming programs.  But with your help, we can double – or even triple(!) – the number of school kids reached across the world! Will you donate? Together we can see the end.

Travel log: Getting there is half the battle

NTDs


By Richard Hatzfeld

Richard recently traveled with filmmaker Mo Scarpelli to explore what life is like in , an area that supplied most of the country’s “conflict diamonds” during its bloody civil war, and which has some of Sierra Leone’s highest rates of neglected tropical diseases.

Seiyo

Driving east from Freetown, Sierra Leone, to the remote district of Kono, the challenge of getting medicine to the communities that need it becomes pretty clear.  The country’s infrastructure is slowly being rebuilt after a devastating civil war, but many of the roads can’t withstand the rainy season that lasts from May until October.

Following a downpour, roads are often transformed into rivers of mud, with pot holes large enough to swallow trucks.  Once one vehicle becomes stuck, it creates a bottleneck that prevents other cars and trucks from passing.  It’s not unusual for some drivers to be stuck for days during especially torrential downpours, forcing them to sleep on the road and find food wherever they can.

Helen Keller International, our partner in a recent treatment program for neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) in Sierra Leone, overcame these types of challenges as they transported hundreds of boxes of pills upcountry to Kono district.  Drivers like Seiyo – pictured here – are unsung heroes in the effort to control and eliminate NTDs in Sierra Leone and around the world.

Often pushing vehicles to their mechanical limits, finding invisible pathways through the mud, and helping to clear stuck trucks, Seiyo and others like him ensure that the key transit routes for Sierra Leone’s commerce stay open and essential medicines get to the people.

You can see more stories about unsung heroes and others filmed during my trip to Kono District in “In the Rough,” a new short film by the END7 Campaign.

 

Notes from the Field on Lymphatic Filariasis

lymphatic filariasis, NTDs, , , , ,

Global Health Frontline News is a special reporting unit of Cielo Productions, Inc. They recently launched a blog entitled Notes from the Field which showcases various global health topics, including neglected tropical diseases. Below are recent and interesting reads about lymphatic filariasis:

Photo credit: Global Health Frontline News

The curse of “Big Fut”: Treating Lymphatic Filariasis
October 19, 2011, By David Lindsay, Managing Editor of Global Health Frontline News.
“Fatmata is one of two attractive, intelligent young women, 19 years old, whom we met during a health campaign in Sierra Leone. They had two things in common: They suffered from what locals call “Big Fut,” and it was unlikely that either of them would ever marry or have a family. “Big Fut” is better known as lymphatic filariasis, or elephantiasis. It’s a dreadful parasitic disease that primarily causes feet, legs and men’s scrotums, to swell to grotesque proportions.” Read the full blogpost here.

Guest Blog: Closing gaps and opening minds: Addressing the psychological burden of lymphatic filariasis in southern Sri Lanka
October 12, 2011, By Lizzie Litt, medical student from the University of Liverpool in the UK.

Photo credit: Global Health Frontline News

“The World Health Organisation (WHO) has classically defined health as: ‘A complete state of physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity’ Through physical disability and social stigmatisation, patients with Lymphatic Filariasis (LF) are vulnerable to poor mental states, and subjected to lives lacking all these defining aspects of health. Recent research in Galle, Sri Lanka has established that nothing is being done to identify and address such issues, whilst a solution is within reach. The morbidity management program (MMP), is an aspect of the global program to eliminate LF (GPELF). Although it aims to address the chronic manifestations of LF, it is currently not sensitised to any of the psychological consequences of the disease.’” Read the full blogpost here.