A big part of my job is welcoming new people to the Health Unit and waving goodbye to folks as they leave. This job is full of people transitioning in and out and in and out. When people are leaving Rwanda, they are supposed to check out of the Health Unit. This gives us a chance to review their chart and make copies of their medical record for the person to take with them to their next posting.
Part of our check out includes offering the person a screening for Shistosomiasis. Before joining the State Department I had vaguely heard of Schisto. Whatever I learned went in one ear and out the other as it wasn't something I ever saw in my prior work. Boy, has that changed!
Schisto is a worm that you get from swimming in infected fresh water. The worms are found in the snails that are in the water. The crazy thing is you don't have to ingest the water, the worms don't swim up any orifice...you can get schisto by just touching contaminated water. YIKES! Ex-pat folklore will have you believe any number of things about contracting schisto. "the water is too warm (or too cold)", "there are no reeds in the lake", "local folks don't have it", "see the white ring on the rocks - that means this water is clean" and on and on and on. Honestly, I have heard at least 15 rationalizations about why folks have gotten in the water. It doesn't really matter to me, schisto is easy to treat and you can diagnosis it with a blood test.
What kind of freaks me out is how hard it is to avoid the fresh water here. If you have seen my past blog pictures - the fresh water lakes here are amazing and beautiful and clean. It makes it really difficult to "just say no". I am not sure in my two years here I will always say "no" to swimming and splashing in the water but I will definitely get tested for my friend schisto upon leaving Rwanda. If you want to read more about schisto - check out the CDC website.
What kind of freaks me out is how hard it is to avoid the fresh water here. If you have seen my past blog pictures - the fresh water lakes here are amazing and beautiful and clean. It makes it really difficult to "just say no". I am not sure in my two years here I will always say "no" to swimming and splashing in the water but I will definitely get tested for my friend schisto upon leaving Rwanda. If you want to read more about schisto - check out the CDC website.
1 comment:
There was a great movie starring Gary Cooper, 'The Story of Doctor Wassel (Wasson?)' about the Arkansas doctor who traveled to China and made the discovery that the snails were vectors for the pest.
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