VCU GH2DP Outreach Trip to Yoro: Pictures Published

Outreach group in La Hicaca 

An overview of our recent outreach trip to Yoro, Honduras has been published on the GH2DP website and can be found here. A slideshow of pictures from the trip can be found here.

Distributing water filters, Lomitas

Dental clinic, La Hicaca

Engineers Without Borders students with water test plates

Medicine clinic, La Hicaca

Medicine clinic, La Hicaca

Medicine clinic, Lomitas

VCU GH2DP Yoro trip: kissing bugs and a new way to obtain clean water

Here is a brief post from Olanchito, Honduras. I want to share a few more pictures and highlight a few more of the experiences we had on our outreach trip.

Chagas disease is a major issue for the communities we serve in Honduras; this is an infection carried in the gastrointestinal tracts of "kissing bugs." These bugs feed on humans and defecate; the feces is irritating and the Chagas parasite is then inoculated into that person's blood when they scratch. Chronic infection causes significant morbidity and mortality, leading to heart failure and arrhythmias, amongst other complications. Our colleagues from Brock University and the National Autonomous University of Honduras identified these "kissing bugs" for our group-see the picture below.

The picture below is with our colleagues from Brock and the National Autonomous University of Honduras.

The picture below is of a novel rain catchment device that was put into place by VCU Engineers Without Borders students Lucas Potter and Kristina Kelly. They also performed formal interviews to determine the barriers to adopting this technology on the communities we serve. 

More to come, stay tuned! 

VCU GH2DP Yoro outreach trip: back from the mountains!

This is an early recap of our GH2DP outreach trip to the mountains of rural Yoro, Honduras-blogging from the car on the way back to Olanchito.  We just spent the past 5 days providing medical care to people in a region with little to no access to care. All told, we saw approximately 750 people over 6 days of clinic. We reached people from twenty different villages. All adults were screened for diabetes, hypertension, de-wormed and had acute medical issues addressed, as well. We managed and triaged preseptal cellulitis, new-onset seizure disorder, hemorrhage requiring acute transport to a regional hospital and leishmaniasis.

We distributed 83 water filters (each of which can provide clean drinking water to an entire family for 2 years) and facilitated approximately 90 pap smears and dental extractions for 97 patients. We administered over 460 surveys on topics ranging from women's health issues, barriers to water filter use, new water catchment technology and soil transmitted helminths. Dr. Ana Sanchez and colleagues from Brock University examined stool samples on several scores of people, helping to identify recalcitrant worm infections and connecting these patients to appropriate care.

We screened patients for vision issues and distributed 67 pairs of eyeglasses. A new water catchment system was trialed and microbiological testing was performed on over 30 water samples. Students and residents received didactic and clinical lectures on dengue, soil transmitted helminths, diarrhea, malaria and Chagas' disease, among other topics. We had an absolutely terrific group of highly motivated student and resident physicians. Four students in our GH2DP Student Scholars program completed research projects as did our GH2DP pathway resident. All in all a fantastic trip! Will blog more in the near future with pictures.