Infectious Diseases Training program in Bolivia: South-South Training with Peru

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ABSTRACT The program entitled “Infectious Diseases Training program in Bolivia: South-South Training with Peru” is a project aimed at building capacity of personnel conducting infectious disease research in Bolivia. The program leverages the resources, infrastructure, personnel, and training network that our team has built in Peru for over 25 years as a mechanism to train individuals in Bolivia. Here, we propose to extend our training program to infectious disease at risk of alterations from climate change. Our goal is to prepare a group of researchers to respond to the changes in epidemiology and transmission of vector-borne infections as climate change threatens to drastically affect the ecology of these diseases. This extension will use the same six steps of tiered trainings as our parent program, but with two additional objectives: (1) set up a course on the climate change-human health nexus at the three partnering Bolivian universities; and (2) use training projects as a springboard for Bolivian researchers to generate data to procure funding for long-term studies. The training steps include the following: Step 1: Introductory workshop. Extend the length of our parent program workshop to include vector-borne diseases and how they will be impacted by climate change. Include an additional 20+ students with interest in vector research in the Bolivian workshop. Step 2: Hands-on training in vector-based fieldwork and laboratory methods. Train 10 students in conducting fieldwork for vector collection and measuring environmental conditions at field sites in Bolivia. Link the fieldwork to laboratory work, as appropriate, in Bolivia and Peru. Step 3: Training in epidemiology and biostatistics. Train an additional 2 Bolivian students in a master's degree program at UPCH. Step 4: Participation in the Summer Institute in Tropical Medicine and Public Health at JHSPH. Support an additional 5 students to attend the Summer Institute in Tropical Medicine and Public Health at JHSPH. Step 5: Fund a postdoctoral student to conduct research in vector-borne disease research. Support 1 postdoctoral student at Johns Hopkins University to conduct high-level research on vector-borne diseases and their relation to climate. 1