Will be spending the rest of the trip training our growing field team on how to work with data from our data loggers.  We were successful on the whole in our PSU-led short-term sample.  Now it is time for our Indian partners to take the reigns for a long-term sample!  I know they can do it!

Good Morning Chennai!  It's gonna be hot!

A wonderful moment: Student becomes teacher

Spending the day in Delhi meeting with collaborators before traveling to Chennai this evening.  It is much warmer than it was when I visited in January.  I can't imagine how hot Chennai will be!

We are planning to check in withour collaborators in Chennai starting on the 14th. Look out for new pics of our progress!

(So excited to Shalu and the rest of the field team!)

Not much left to say! I leave you with Mr. Varghese enteraining us toward the end of a loooooong day of sampling!

Great trip! Very Productive!

Back in April!

A group from the University of Washington has come out with mortality numbers for malaria which are considerably higher than current estimates published by WHO. This study also claims that India's malaria burden is grossly underestimated and that this country contributes greatly to global malaria burden.

In many of the places where malaria is most prevalent the cause of death listed on death certificates (if they have them) is not always accurate. This new study incorporates verbal autopsy data. This data is collected by interviewing family members about the symptoms of a patient before death.

I'm sure that WHO has underestimated, but I'm not so sure about these new estimates either. "With those studies, other kinds of fill-in-the-gap indicators and a lot of fancy extrapolation, the team has come up with what it calls "the most systematic assessment to date of malaria mortality."

I'm always weary of "fancy extrapolation".

Decide for yourself:

LOOK AT THE FINDINGS ON THE U OF WASHINGTON GROUPS WEBSITE http://www.healthmetricsandevaluation.org/tools/data-visualization/deaths-due-malaria-age-region-country-and-year-global-1980-2010

NPR STORY ON NEW ESTIMATES http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/02/02/146303865/researchers-say-malaria-deaths-are-twice-the-official-count?ps=sh_sthdl

For me: A dosa (pancake looking thing) with coconut, mint-coconut, masal, and tomato chutney all washed down with a mango milkshake! YUM

For the mosquitoes: blood! This is called membrane feeding and yes there are IRBs and safety protocols involved.

Most of the data loggers survived a week without us!  This is great news! Now it is time for me to crunch some numbers and make sure we don't need to move them around too much! I have a million pictures of data loggers, but no one will find those very exciting so I present "Behind the Scenes of Data Logger Download":

Shalu showing a resident the temperature profile of her house!

There is a reason I am typically BEHIND the camera! (we were almost finished here!)

Well we couldn't get THAT close to the Indian Ocean and not stick our feet in!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_Day_(India)

Is apparently where you find LOTS of Anopheles larvae.  Hopefully we can get a colony going from the collections made today!

The field team sampling on the roof a construction site. Notice Shalu has become a great field ecologist!

Blurry larvae and pupae! Hooray!