BLOOMBERG SCHOOL RECEIVES GIFT TO COLLECT DATA ON THE IMPACT OF EFFORTS TO CONTROL SCHISTOSOMIASIS IN UGANDA
The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health has received a generous gift from MaxMind, Inc. to expand data collection activities under the Performance Monitoring and Accountability 2020 (PMA2020) project in Uganda.
The gift has been provided to the Bill & Melinda Gates Institute for Population and Reproductive Health and the Johns Hopkins Water Institute to fund the PMA2020 Schistosomiasis monitoring program. The gift will be used to monitor and assess the impact of ongoing efforts in Uganda to control schistosomiasis and identify areas for improvements to these programs using the PMA2020 mobile survey platform and network of resident enumerators in Uganda.
Schistosomiasis is a neglected tropical disease caused by parasitic worms. The PMA2020 Schistosomiasis monitoring program will inform the national schistosomiasis control efforts and policy decisions in Uganda. Information from this study will directly tie to ongoing Ministry of Health-led programs.
The project will be developed and implemented through a close collaboration between Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore Maryland and Makerere University in Kampala Uganda. PMA2020’s female enumerators will use smartphones to conduct interviews and map transmission hotspots in the environment, quantifying worm infection and reinfection and various causal factors.
This generous gift will allow PMA2020 to expand data collection to a new health sector and also demonstrate the adaptability of this innovative data collection platform.