Once a year, USF St. Petersburg anthropology professor Micah Boyer ventures out to Benin West Africa to research the disease Buruli ulcer.
Boyer works for Optimus Foundation Stop Buruli research consortium on a social science team with Dr. Mark Nichter, who was Boyer’s Ph.D. adviser at the University of Arizona.
Buruli ulcer is the third most prevalent mycobacterium disease—the first two being tuberculosis and leprosy. According to the World Health Organization, Buruli ulcer is caused by a germ, Mycobacterium ulcerans. It mainly affects the skin by producing a toxin, mycolactone, which destroys tissue.
However, Buruli ulcer is not just a problem in Benin. Stop Buruli consists of eight teams across four continents.
Boyer said this flesh-rotting disease is poorly understood. The transmission of the disease and latency is unknown.
Through his research, Boyer has found that the disease is caused by the environment and not human-to-human transmission. Boyer said Buruli ulcer is believed to be associated with marshy areas such as fresh-water streams and rivers. However, Boyer said symptoms can take five or six years to appear.
The disease is most prevalent in children. Boyer said he believes it is due to their immature immune system.
Buruli ulcer does not cause pain and is easily treated with antibiotics. When treated early, an ulcer can vanish or recover with a small scar. If treatment is delayed, Buruli ulcer can take a serious toll on the body.
Boyer has immersed himself in Benin, researching why someone in Benin would delay treatment and how to help people get the treatment they need.
Social pressure, religion and cost come into question.
Social pressure is an important factor when treating an illness. The stigma is associated with leprosy and its horrific social history. Though, leprosy is easily treated and hard to transmit.
Boyer said to imagine the social pressure in middle school; would you go to school if you smelled like rotting flesh?
Many people in Benin believe in sorcery. They understand physics and structure; sorcery explains why that happens. Why bad things happen to good people. However, Boyer said he learned that their beliefs are irrelevant when solving the problem of Buruli ulcer.
The health care in Benin is free, but a trip to the hospital comes at a different kind of price.
In the rural and poverty-stricken country of Benin, a trip to the hospital may not cost anything, but a loss of a day’s work could mean no food on the table for the family. Going to the hospital is just not practical and the opportunity cost is too high.
Boyer has helped bring local treatment to Benin to help people get treatment during the early stages of the disease.
Boyer plans to come back to Benin in June. He will take the fall semester off to work on publications and plans to be back at USFSP in spring 2016.
For more info on the research consortium visit www.stopburuli.org
