Notes from the Field

By Mindy Rostal
Writing from Kenya

Well, Alina and I have been quite busy. As usual there have been delays to starting our porject in Garissa, so we have spent our time helping with other projects. We went to Mwea to help the Kenya Wildlife Service do bird flu surveillance. While there we worked in full body suits, complete with masks. We certainly had the rice farmers nervous until we explained there was no outbreak and bird flu has not yet been found in Kenya, but we are required to wear the suits by WHO standards. It was fun, we did tracheal and cloacal swabs and took blood samples from wild water fowl that we caught with mist nets in the pond. It was quite interesting also to watch the rice farmers work in their paddies.

Last week, we finally started our project in Garissa. We only sample two days a week, and sampling will continue after we return to the US. We have three more weeks to finish training the hospital staff we are working with to collect the data. We have had the usual problems getting started: making sure the doctors collect acurate data, record the information properly, and don't make up data becuase they think we think its more important (I now see the old adage "no data is better than bad data" in a new light). I think we should be able to get everything straightened out before we leave. Its amazing to me to see the hospital function. They have like two thermometers, and we only saw one stethoscope. So they need a lot of basic medical equipment, and this is a provincial hospital.

Garissa is also suffering from a severe drought and there is little water. It was very disconcerting to drive through areas that were brown and had no leaves. Some of the women along the side of the street were begging us for water! Water! Can you believe it, to not have such a basic resource. It was so difficult to see.

We return to Garissa on Tuesday for another round of sampling. Hopefully, we'll make some more progress!

Thanks,
Mindy