Elijah Juma Profile

Elijah Juma was working in the PAZ project undertaking a study that contributed towards him earning a Masters in Applied Parasitology at the School of Biological Sciences, University of Nairobi, Kenya

Project title:

Human movement in relation to parasitic disease burden, a case-control study in Western Kenya

Project summary
Many rural African villages are characterized by high prevalence of endemic parasitic diseases. These diseases are attributable to poverty, poor sanitation standards and constant exposure to environmental and biological hazards. These diseases are frequently reported as overlapping spatially and temporally within the same epidemiologic setting. Much research has focused on investigating the risk factors related to single parasitic diseases such as malaria, sleeping sickness etc. My study, however, attempts to look at several of these infections; investigating spatially explicit risk factors for simultaneous infection with multiple species of parasites. The objective is to trace human movements and their contact with the environment in order to understand how this relates to parasitic disease burden.