Changing lives

Henriette Lamprecht – Despite growing up in challenging conditions in Katutura, she never abandoned her dream to become a medical doctor.She was fascinated by how science and technology could be used to heal other human beings, says epidemiologist, dr. Lilliane Kahuika-Crentsil.“At the heart of it, my true intention was to help alleviate human suffering caused by illness,” she says.While she eventually realised her dream of becoming a doctor and working in state hospitals, Kahuika-Crentsil felt “there was something more” she needed to do.“I asked myself what I can do to contribute significantly to the health of my people and nation. I then realised I could be a public health specialist who, through research, can support evidence-based decision-making to serve a larger population,” she explains. In clinical medicine Kahuika-Crentsil only got to “help one person at a time”, but epidemiology has given her a platform to help more people at the same time.“I do not discount the important work doctors in clinical practice perform. I just found my niche in public health and I’m passionate about it. It’s much more rewarding.” As an epidemiologist Kahuika-Crentsil is at the forefront of managing among others the hepatitis E outbreak, which in the past 10 months wreaked havoc – especially in the central and coastal regions.Kahuika-Crentsil’s role in such an outbreak is to study the distribution and determinants of health-related states or events in specified populations. This also includes the application of the study to control health issues.“In a nutshell, it means when a disease (or an outbreak) arises, I analyse what is causing the disease (using epidemiological research methods), determine what the cure could be, as well as recommend evidence-based control and prevention measures to prevent future outbreaks,” Kahuika-Crentsil explains.Her work is, however, not confined to the office.“To an extent I need to go out to the affected communities and engage with the community leaders and members for epidemiological research (data collection and analysis) to direct the implementation of prevention and control interventions. In the case of the current and ongoing hepatitis E outbreak, it also raises awareness of the disease in the community.” According to Kahuika-Crentsil epidemiology is not limited to medicine. “An epidemiologist can be anyone with a professional background in health sciences such as medicine, nursing and pharmacy, public health, veterinary sciences, laboratory sciences, environmental sciences, biology and statistics.”Namibia’s ministry of health and social services is one of many in African countries to have implemented the Field Epidemiology and Laboratory Training Program (FELTP), a two-year program in partnership with the US CDC (Center for disease control and prevention) and the University of Namibia’s (Unam) School of Public Health.The program aims to train field epidemiologists, a special breed of epidemiologists, to be the nation’s foot soldiers in disease prevention and control. Since its inception, the program has trained about 18 field epidemiologists with diverse professional backgrounds in health sciences, veterinary sciences and environmental health sciences. “We need a lot more field epidemiologists because their contribution towards our country’s health security agenda is of utmost importance,” says Kahuika-Crentsil.As a field epidemiologist her area of focus is on outbreak investigation, health emergency, readiness and response activities, communicable disease surveillance and field research to study risk factors for the distribution of communicable diseases in affected populations.“The core function of field epidemiology is to apply scientific methods to day to day public health conditions in order to generate new knowledge and evidence for decision-making.”According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) a disease outbreak is the occurrence of cases of disease in excess of what would normally be expected in a defined community, geographical area or season. “An outbreak may occur in a limited geographical area, or may extend to several countries. It may last a few days, weeks, or for several years.”As a medical doctor, who worked in clinical practice for a while, she admits it was “such a challenge to reorientate myself from an individualised and curative approach to a primary preventative and population-based approach,” which is what public health is largely about. “The other challenge is that we have a limited skilled public health workforce. Namibia could achieve so much with a good number of public health experts, who could be working together to build a robust public health system to improve the lives of all Namibians.” Kahuika-Crentsil emphasises everyone at various levels of society has a part to play by working together in helping to contain disease outbreaks.“Even simple measures such as practising good hand hygiene is a giant leap in disease control and prevention.”A big plus of her job is “to engage with different people with brilliant minds from diverse professional backgrounds”, with many years of experience in public health and from different countries. “I love learning and I’m acquiring a wealth of knowledge daily. For me the icing on the cake is that I get to change the lives of people I don’t even know, or haven’t even met. I couldn’t achieve this with clinical medicine. “I haven’t figured out what my least favourite aspect of my job is. So far, so good!”

Changing lives

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Namibian Sun 2024-11-25

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Changing lives

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Namibian Sun 2024-11-25

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