Better than boiling oil or amputation? Stories behind the treatment needs of two of the world’s most neglected tropical diseases, cutaneous leishmaniasis and mycetoma
Monday, 16 September 2019, 14:00-15:30
Foresight Centre, Liverpool, UK
What links someone bitten by a sandfly while paddling down the Essequibo River in Guyana to a shepherd in Sudan who steps on a thorn with bare feet? The answer is…infection by some of the most neglected among the neglected tropical diseases listed by the World Health Organization. Cutaneous leishmaniasis (more easily known as CL) and mycetoma both lack effective treatment options that are short and non-toxic. There are some 600,000 to 1.2 million new cases of CL every year, while the global burden of mycetoma is unknown, as it has been so little studied.
Join us at Liverpool’s Foresight Centre, on the sidelines of the 2019 European Congress for Tropical Medicine and International Health, for the engaging stories of Pip Stewart, a British adventurer who contracted CL on a record-breaking paddling trip in the Amazon, and two researchers working on the first-ever clinical trial for a fungal mycetoma treatment, Dr Borna Nyaoke-Anoke, a physician and clinical researcher from the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) based in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dr Sahar Bakhiet, a microbiologist at the Mycetoma Research Centre in Khartoum, Sudan who works with communities affected by mycetoma.
Speakers
Pip Stewart
Pip Stewart is a journalist, poet, and presenter. She has cycled halfway around the world (16,000km from Malaysia to London), and has a degree in Modern History and Politics from Oxford University, and a masters in Journalism from the University of Hong Kong. In 2018 Pip found herself in a relationship with a flesh-eating parasite, leishmaniasis, after a world-first, 2.5 month, paddling expedition through dense Amazon jungle. Whilst she’s a big advocate of connection she wouldn’t, however, recommend getting involved with a flesh-eating parasite if it can be avoided.
Dr Borna Nyaoke-Anoke
Dr Borna Nyaoke-Anoke is a Kenyan physician and clinical researcher who manages clinical trials for the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative and the Global Antibiotic Research and Development Partnership in Nairobi. Liverpool is no stranger to her, as she earned her Master of Public Health from the University of Liverpool. Dr Nyaoke-Anoke was named one of the Top 40 Women Under 40 in Kenya in 2017.
Dr Sahar Bakhiet
Dr Sahar Bakhiet is the Head of the Department of Molecular Microbiology at the Institute of Endemic Diseases and Head of Research at the Mycetoma Research Centre in Khartoum, Sudan. She was moved to change her research focus from visceral leishmaniasis to mycetoma after seeing small children with amputated limbs as a result of the fungal disease.
Practical information
Date: Monday, 16 September 2019
Time: 14:00-15:30
Venue: Foresight Centre 1 Brownlow St Liverpool L69 3GL UK
This event is free, no registration is needed.
