Global Health Microbiology

Authors: Christopher Burns, PhD and Joanna Shisler, PhD

This team-based learning (TBL) module addresses basic strategies to control or eliminate infectious disease, focusing on parasites as the main example. Students develop an understanding of parasite life-cycles in the context of solving real-world problems in global health. This includes basic knowledge about the disease, characteristics, habitat and transmission, pathogenesis, laboratory diagnosis, prevention, life cycle and any hosts or vectors, number and location of infected population, and eradication or control strategies.

An emphasis on neglected tropical diseases provides complex problems with regional and societal facets, and economic and political challenges, in addition to basic and clinical science content. Application exercise problems address major factors in disease elimination including vaccination, physical barriers, targeting vectors, effectiveness of treatment, role of different hosts, and detection of infected individuals.

Organisms/diseases covered include Plasmodium (malaria), Dracunculus (Guinea worm), Onchocerca (river blindness), Wuchereria (lymphatic filarisis), and poliovirus (polio), and touch on measles and smallpox as examples of possible recurrence.

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