Skip to main content

Uche Amazigo



Uche Amazigo comes from humble origins, but this daughter of a chauffeur earned a doctorate in public health and is working with the World Health Organization on the challenge of controlling onchocerciasis, widely known as river blindness.

A soft-spoken, elegant woman in her fifties, Dr Amazigo, who became director of APOC in 2005, developed an interest in onchocerciasis because of its most destructive symptom. Working as a lecturer on tropical diseases in the university town of Nsukka in the late 1970s, Dr Amazigo had a chance encounter with a pregnant woman who was plagued by the disease's characteristic itchy lesions and striking depigmentation, and whose husband had left her due to these disfiguring effects.

Moved and deeply saddened by the woman's predicament, Dr Amazigo resolved to help pay for her treatment and to learn more about how the disease destroyed lives. She enrolled in a local rural women's group to hear firsthand about the consequences of onchocerciasis, a parasitic infection transmitted through the bite of the blackfly, on important life experiences such as marriage and breast feeding. And, around the same time, she contacted the head of the WHO-associated Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR) and was encouraged to apply for a grant to study the disease properly. She took up the offer, and her research has since helped change international perceptions about the morbidity associated with onchocerciasis. WHO has repeated Dr Amazigo's studies in several other countries, and this data formed the scientific basis for launching APOC in 1995, which Dr Amazigo was invited to join as a scientist in 1996.

Source(s): PubMed Central, PBS, MyStoriesMyTestimonies
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Donatus Ibeakwadalam Nwoga

The late Donatus Nwoga was a Professor of African Literature and the Dean of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. Donatus was the Secretary of the Planning and Management Committee of the former Eastern Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation (1970); member of the Board of the former East-Central State Broadcasting Corporation (1974-76); member of the former East-Central State Library Board (1975-76); and former member of Imo State Library Board (1977-79). Ibeakwadalam passed the Cambridge School Certificate Examination in Division One, with exemption from matriculation in 1950; he passed the General Certificate of Education Advanced Level Examinations in English Literature, Latin and Ancient History at a sitting, with exemption from Inter B.A. of the University of London In 1955; and in 1960, when he obtained his Bachelor's degree from the Queen's University of Belfast, he won in the same breath the highly coveted "High Graham Mitchell Bursary" for the...
19 comments
Read more

King Onyeama of Eke

The King of Agbaja, Onyeama n’Eke was the greatest king in northern Igboland. He was probably the greatest Igbo king in living memory. From his palace in Eke, Onyeama reigned over the entire Agbaja, from Oji River though Udi and Ezeagu to the present-day political capital of Igboland, Enugu, and even Nkanu and Ogui communities. Onyeama was born circa 1870s, the youngest of the ten children of Özö Omulu Onwusi, a polygamous titled man of means, and an only son of his mother – Chinazungwa Ijeonyeabo of nearby Ebe community. Brought up by his half-brother, Amadiezeoha Nwankwo-Onwusi, Onyeama worked hard and made his mark in business. He traveled to famous Aro-controlled trading centers including Abiriba, Arochukwu, Arondizuogu, Bende, Oguta, Uburu, etc. When British rule reached Eke in 1908, Onyeama was rich enough to buy his way into the Ozo title society and to marry a local beauty, Afia Nwirediagu, and later Gwachi Ebue. Onyema attended the British Empire Exhibition in May 1924 and was...
4 comments
Read more

Bartholomew Nnaji

Bartholomew Nnaji is a scientist, innovator and one of the inventors of the E-Design concept. He was born in Enugu State, and earned a Bachelor of Science degree in physics at St John's University, and then preceded to the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University for post-graduate studies. He joined the faculty at University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 1983. After a few years, he became the director and a founder of the Automation and Robotics Laboratory at the University. He was made a professor of mechanical and industrial engineering in 1992. As a researcher, he focused on three major topics: Computer Aided Design, Robotics and Computer Aided Engineering. Using the knowledge he gained from his research pursuits, he created the term geometric reasoning, the idea that most things we operate has a geometric configuration. He is also credited as one of the innovators of the E-design concept. He is also the founder of the first indigenous owned power generating company in...
Post a Comment
Read more