Epidemiology is the science of the spread, causes and consequences of diseases in a population. It provides data that describe the occurrence of diseases and thus gives important information for their control.
We are collaborating with our African Partner Institutions in Burkina Faso, Gabon, Ghana and Tanzania, to improve the diagnosis and treatment of malaria. Currently, we are working on the following topics:
- Malaria coinfections and their impact for clinical routine,
- effect of early childhood malaria episodes on the development of infants and
- immune response to a malaria infection to develop innovative tests for rapid diagnosis.
The close cooperation between different disciplines such as medicine, microbiology, data management, study planning, epidemiology and data collection on site is the key to generating reliable data.
Febrile diseases - a diagnostic challenge
In many developing countries, hospitals have limited facilities for laboratory testing. Diagnosis must therefore be made on the basis of clinical symptoms. This becomes a challenge when, for example, a child with fever – which can have several causes – needs to be treated. We have carried out comprehensive clinical and laboratory diagnostics on a large group of children who were treated in our partner hospitals in Africa. The aim was to determine the causes of the disease as accurately as possible and to determine the frequency of coinfections. The data helps medical staff to assess symptoms on site, to make targeted use of the limited diagnostic options available and thus to initiate appropriate therapy.