OSU reaching out to help Ethiopia

Wondwossen Gebreyes, shown in OSU’s Department of Veterinary Preventive Medicine, will teach molecular epidemiology in his homeland of Ethiopia.

In Ethiopia, oncologists often turn patients away, telling them to come back in six or seven months. There are too many patients and not enough drugs, equipment and trained people to treat them.
For many of those people, the delay might as well be a death sentence.
That’s one reason that 20 faculty members and students from Ohio State University are going to Ethiopia this summer to kick-start a pilot project that will address three major public-health problems — cervical cancer, food safety and rabies — among other things.
The One Health Summer Institute, which began three weeks ago and runs to Aug. 2, involves the university’s seven health-science colleges in what Ohio State calls an unprecedented collaboration.
The faculty members and students train future trainers in Ethiopia, perform research and do outreach work to improve public health, said Wondwossen Gebreyes, a molecular epidemiologist in the OSU Department of Veterinary Preventive Medicine. Each person stays in Ethiopia for two weeks to two months.
“Our plan is (for it) to be a mutually beneficial, sustainable project,” said Gebreyes, who is a native of Ethiopia and left for his home country on Saturday. “We don’t provide the fish; rather, we show them how to fish.”
The program is a partnership between Ohio State and two universities in Ethiopia. The idea is to provide students with a global understanding and a life-changing experience, said Lonnie King, the executive dean for health sciences at Ohio State. “They come back changed, with whole new ideas and career aspirations.”
Kristina Slagle, 29, a doctoral candidate in environment and natural resources, leaves for Ethiopia on Wednesday and will work with other students on the rabies project. She is to return about 10 days later.
“I had no idea I’d ever get the opportunity to do this,” said Slagle, of Huber Heights. “It’s a really cool opportunity for travel and research.”
Every year, 55,000 people in the world die from rabies.
“Dog rabies in Ethiopia is a serious problem,” King said. “It all could be prevented if we eliminated the disease in dogs or got to them for treatment.”The program might shift to other countries in the future, Gebreyes said.
The work in Ethiopia is to continue into the school year, when faculty members and students will develop a proposal for priority areas, work on obtaining grants and welcome scholars and officials from universities in Ethiopia.
The institute is to continue in Ethiopia next summer.
Gebreyes said he’s happy “as long as we make an impact on livelihood and make an impact on OSU students.”
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