Brazil, Kenya and China: this week, the sixth annual Global Health Research Showcase proved that Global Health majors truly represent global interests.

This past summer, Duke PhD student Tulika Singh explored complementary diagnosis techniques for Zika virus pregnant women in Vitoria, Brazil. Zika is difficult to diagnose “because the PCR-based test can only tell if you’ve had Zika virus within about ten days of the infection,” Singh said. “That’s a big problem for enrolling pregnant women into our study on Zika transmission and maternal immunity.”

To combat this issue, Singh and her thesis advisor Sallie Permar trained collaborators to use the whole virion ELISA (WVE) laboratory technique which may reveal if an individual has been exposed to Zika. ELISA detects Zika through testing for the antibodies that most likely would have been produced during a Zika infection. Singh’s work allows the research team to better assess whether women have been exposed to Zika virus during pregnancy, and will ultimately guide Zika vaccine design. 

Master of Science in Global Health candidate Carissa Novak examined why some HPV positive women in Western Kenya are not seeking preventive measures against cervical cancer. All the women diagnosed with HPV were referred to the Country Hospital but only “33 to 42 percent actually sought treatment” leading to Novak’s main research question, “Why did so few women seek treatment?” To answer this question, she sent out quantitative questionnaires to 100 women and then followed up by interviewing 20 of them. She surveyed and interviewed both women who had and had not sought treatment. Her results showed that transportation and cost hinder treatment acquirement and that the women who did seek treatment were often directed to by a health worker or actively trying to prevent cervical cancer. Novak believes that increasing women’s trust and understanding of the health care system will assist in improving the percentage who seek treatment.

In Kunshan, China, Brian Grasso evaluated the development of Kunshan’s health system in relation to its economic development. “Kunshan is now China’s richest county-level city and it used to be a small farm town…My main take away was that economic growth has strengthened Kunshan’s health systems while also creating new health challenges,” Grasso said. What are some of these new health challenges? Some of them include air pollution, increased stress in manufacturing jobs and more car accidents. Grasso determines that other developing health systems should learn from Kunshan that without proper regulations poor health can result in the midst of progress.

Post by Lydia Goff