Greetings from Malawi!

Today was my first day of work with Partners in Health Malawi (Known locally as Abwenzi Pa Za Umoyo).

I arrived in Malawi on Friday after three planes and 30+ hours of travel, and then I was picked up and driven the 2.5 hours to the Neno District Hospital, where PIH Malawi is based. The road was super washed out from all the rain so it was a VERY bumpy ride. But I finally made it in the evening and spent the weekend resting and walking around the area a bit.

Today (Monday) I met with Dr. Dimitri Suffrin, who is the TB/HIV director here and we went over plans for my time here. I then took a tour of the offices and hospital and met a TON of people. In the afternoon, I worked on putting together an activity plan that details my goals for the summer and how I will achieve them, and tomorrow morning I will present them to the Hospital's medical director for approval and then start the real work.

It is very beautiful here. Here are some photos of the area :)

While I am here, I will be working on two projects relating to Tuberculosis diagnostics. The first is implementing sputum collection sites at community centers so that people can get tested for TB without needing to go to a health clinic. The second project is the implementation of screening using a portable   X-Ray equipped with AI to predict whether a patient is likely to have TB. Right now, the portable X-Ray has been used at the district hospital (which is a secondary health facility) and briefly piloted at two primary health facilities but there are a total of 14 primary health facilities in the district and thus a lot of room to expand the program. 

Finally, the hope is that the data collected through the implementation of these two programs will lead to future publications. Helping to write these papers and analyze data is something I can do when I am back in the US.

Overall, a good first day, and I will continue to update throughout my 7 weeks here!