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David Barker, Buruli ulcer and the epidemiology of a neglected tropical disease

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 May 2015

D. I. W. Phillips*
Affiliation:
MRC Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK
*
*Address for correspondence: D. Phillips, Medical Research Council, Southampton General Hospital, Tremona Road, Southampton SO17 1NN, UK. (Email [email protected])

Abstract

In 1969, David Barker, his wife and four children moved to Uganda to work at Makerere Medical School in the capital Kampala. During the 1960s, Makerere had become a research and teaching centre with an international reputation based on the work of Trowell, Burkitt, Hutt and many others who had pioneered studies explaining the disease patterns in the West Nile area on the basis of the local climate, nutrition and lifestyle. David Barker was funded by the Medical Research Council to carry out research on a poorly understood disease, Buruli ulcer, joining Scottish surgeon Wilson Carswell, who was later to achieve fame as the role model for Dr Garrigan in Giles Foden’s novel The Last King of Scotland.

Type
Original Article
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press and the International Society for Developmental Origins of Health and Disease 2015 

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