PUBH7101
Infectious and Tropical Disease
Course Coordinator: Dr Andrew Vallely
Delivery Mode: Internal
Introduction
This course covers key infectious and tropical diseases affecting human populations with a focus on resource-poor countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and the Pacific. The course will place these diseases within a broad burden of disease framework and will debate the role of poverty, gender, conflict and other factors that contribute to differential disease burden between and within communities. Case studies from the published literature will be used to illustrate key concepts and to facilitate debate. The global distribution, disease burden, epidemiology, surveillance, life cycle, clinical manifestations, treatment and prevention of each disease will be described. For diseases that have vectors or intermediary hosts, factors affecting disease transmission, vector ecology and environmental control options will also be discussed. The course includes visits to local laboratories for practical sessions on mosquito vector and snail intermediary host biology and a half-day field trip in the Brisbane area to see the ecology, breeding sites and environmental control of locally-important mosquito vectors.
Aims
This course will enable you to describe the geographical distribution, epidemiology, life cycle, clinical manifestations, treatment and prevention of key infectious and tropical diseases affecting human populations with a focus on resource-poor countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and the Pacific. This course will also equip you with a foundation of knowledge and skills to enable you to participate effectively in the design and implementation of infectious and tropical disease control programmes in a variety of settings and to foster an appreciation of integrated approaches to disease control.
Content
Specific topics will include:
- Communicable disease control and approaches to prevention and control in countries at different levels of development
- Specific diseases including: Arboviruses such as dengue, Yellow fever, Rift Valley fever, West Nile virus, Chikungunya and others; Trypanosomiasis in African and the Americas; Lymphatic filariasis and onchocerciasis; Malaria (recent advances; malaria in pregnancy); Leishmaniasis; Schistosomiasis; Soil transmitted helminthiasis (hookworm, whipworm, roundworm, others); Typhus and the rickettsial diseases (spotted fevers, murine and scrub typhus, Q fever); Febrile illness in children;
- Other topics to be covered through individual and group assignments include: plague, rabies, viral haemorrhagic fevers, polio, cholera, typhoid, smallpox, trachoma, tropical skin diseases, African tick typhus, stronyloidiasis, cysticercosis, hydatid disease, cutaneous and visceral larva migrans.
Assessment
One individual written assignment and an oral presentation on the same topic (60% in total); one group presentation (40%)
Recommended texts
Chin J. Control of Communicable Disease Manual. Washington, DC: American Public Health Association, 2000.
Cook G, Zumla A eds. Manson's Tropical Diseases. Twenty-first Edition. London: Saunders, 2003.
Peters W, Pasvol G eds. Atlas of Tropical Medicine and Parasitology. Sixth Ed.. Philadelphia: Elsevier, 2007
Resources
Online Blackboard site: This provides an interactive environment for you and teachers. Reliable and regular access to the Internet is required.
Further details are provided in the Course Profile: http://www.uq.edu.au/study/course.html?course_code=PUBH7101
Course Coordinator Contact Details
Dr Andrew Vallely
School of Population Health
University of Queensland
Herston Road
Herston
QLD 4006
AUSTRALIA
Phone: +61 (0)7 3346 4970
Fax: +61 (0)7 3365 5599
Email: a.vallely@uq.edu.au
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