Poop Week

The Universidad Cayetano Heredia in Lima is doing a study on the prevalence of taeniasis and cysticercosis in Peru.  Taenia solium is a tapeworm that is spread through the consumption of undercooked pork.  If the eggs of the Taenia are eaten by a human, larvae can enter into the muscle or brain and form cysts, causing muscle pain, seizures, and all sorts of other problems, like death.

Yeah, pigs, I'm talking about you.

So the Universidad Cayetano sent me materials (and the lovely biologist, Lauralee Woods) to collect stool samples from as many people as possible.  They will test the samples for any parasites, and send treatment to those who have taeniasis.

Before we could start doing samples, I had to go door-to-door and do a survey of my town to collect information on how they keep their pigs, where and when they kill them, and also the general sanitation of their homes.  Then we had to coordinate dates when Health Center personnel would be available and get the materials shipped.  And finally, last week was Poop Week.

Poop Week got off to a rough start when I accidentally left 2/3 of the materials in Chincha and had to get them sent up to me the following day.  Tuesday and Wednesday, 3 técnicas got on their ATVs and visited some far away communities to give out cups to families, while I visited as many houses as I possibly could in Tantará.  Prioritizing families with children, we managed to give 300 people materials to do stool samples.  

Lauralee and I then spent Thursday and Friday collecting, coding, and processing poop.

Lauralee stirring a vial of PBS and poo

Poop can be fun!

In the end, we collected 154 stool samples (not a bad percentage in a community of between 400-500 people).

Now we wait for the results, and then get to work treating the parasites we find.

Special thanks to the Universidad Cayetano for making this possible, to my Health Center staff who repeatedly woke up at the crack of dawn to help me (in addition to their already busy days), and most of all, to Lauralee, who dealt with my panic attacks, made everything run smoothly, and who gets extra bonus points for handling the most disgusting stool sample that ever existed:

(so gross I had to take a picture)