New fields of action for the research ofUniversità Campus Bio-Medico di Roma in Madagascar
10 May 2015 - The collaboration betweenUniversità Campus Bio-Medico di Roma and the St. Damien Hospital in Ambanja, Madagascar, is enriched with new horizons and new fields of action. Doctors and students returning from the last workcamp are in fact processing the data collected during the epidemiological investigations carried out in the field and the results are proving to be of considerable interest. Marco Campanale, a cardiology resident who has already participated in two on-site missions, will present the first results of the study “Prevalence of rheumatic heart disease in northern Madagascar: an echocardiographic screening"The congress of the European Society of Cardiology in London in August 2015. The abstract of the study was in fact so suggestive that it was accepted as best poster presentation for its contents and its scientific impact.
Michael Arigliani, pediatrician specializing inUniversità Campus Bio-Medico di Roma instead, it presented at the conference and published with the title "Lung function and nutritional status in urban Malagasy children" the results of the investigation conducted on the nutritional status of children examined during tours in the villages of northern Madagascar.
The blood samples collected during the same tours were instead analyzed for the screening of sickle cell anemia. Fortunately, no children affected by the most serious form of anemia were found, but the need emerged to further investigate pre-school children in order to identify possible young patients affected by this form to whom care should be provided. Intervening early means avoiding suffering and allowing them to live a healthier life. For this reason, theUniversità Campus Bio-Medico di Roma will make treatment available for all cases that are identified.
The University's collaboration with other prestigious institutions in Madagascar is also being strengthened. In fact, he has been in Rome since early May Soa Fy Andriamandimby: virologist researcher at the Institut Pasteur in Antananarivo, the capital of Madagascar. The objective is the transmission of technical laboratory knowledge by our University in the field of genetic investigations of hepatitis viruses and the publication of an important study of viral phylogeny on the most widespread virus strains in Madagascar.