Professor Alan Fenwick awarded honorary membership of the ASTMH

Imperial College Professor of tropical parasitology honoured with award at 61st annual meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene

Professor Alan Fenwick was awarded honorary membership of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygeine at the Society's 61st Annual Meeting on Sunday 11 November 2012. 

“It was a joy for me and an honour to the ASTMH to bestow honorary membership on Alan. Many consider him to have contributed more to the control of schistosomiasis in modern times than any single living individual”, said Dr Stephen Hoffman in his presentation speech at the event in Atlanta, GA, USA.

Founder and Director of the Schistosomiasis Control Initiative in the Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology at Imperial College London, Professor Fenwick was described as being “at the vanguard of working to control this scourge throughout Africa” by Dr Hoffman, former president of the ASTMH.

Indeed, Professor Fenwick’s work has led to extraordinary reductions in the prevalence of this parasitic disease, also known as bilharzia, in countries across Africa. In Uganda the percentage of children with moderate and heavy infections has been reduced from 26.1% to below 3%, whilst a 2004 campaign in Burkina Faso treated more than a million school-aged children, resulting in a coverage rate of 96.76% of those targeted.

To find out more about the Schistosomiasis Control Initiative, please visit their website or find them on Twitter and Facebook.