Africa is on the brink of achieving a major victory over deadly diseases that have plagued its population for generations. With increased access to medical care, improved healthcare infrastructure, and a renewed focus on disease eradication, the continent is closer than ever to ridding itself of illnesses that have taken a devastating toll on its people.
Beninois entomologist Pelagie Boko-Collins believes that preventative action should always be the first course of approach. She places proactive measures at the highest priority, emphasizing that prevention is better than cure.
“Most people think about treatment, but because I’m an entomologist, I think about prevention,” she said.
Boko-Collins is dedicating her career to entomology, the study of insects, with a special focus on disease vectors. During her first eight years working at a research center, her main area of focus was malaria vector control. She observed that many neglected tropical diseases transmitted by vector-borne transmission were not being adequately addressed. She was determined to make a difference and work to prevent the spread of these illnesses. This led her to conduct further research on these NTDs in order to inform vector control strategies for their prevention.
“I was like, why are we just not working in other disease transmissions? Why it is just malaria vector control? We should be able to do more.”
