Background
| Dr Pierre Fongho defended his Ph.D thesis on “Studies of bovine trypanosomiasis and wing geometric morphometrics of tabanids, potential mechanical vectors for animal trypanosomes in the pastoral zones of the Far North region, Cameroon”. He worked with nomadic pastoralists and showed that animal trypanosomes circulate within herds of cattle regardless of the absence of it biological vectors. |
Before this, Pierre Fongho had obtained a Master degree in Animal Biology, with a specialization in Parasitology from the University of Yaoundé I in 2011. The dissertation was titled: Investigating the risk for Human African Trypanosomiasis in Bafia, an historical focus of the disease in centre region, Cameroon. Here, he showed that the species responsible for the disease in human does not circulate any longer, however species responsible for animal disease continue to circulate. After the Master, he held a position of full-time lecturer at the Catholic University Institute Saint Jerome of Douala, School of Health Sciences from 2017 to 2020, where he taught Medical Parasitology and Immunology
Research:
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(1) Insecticide resistance, malaria vector, vectorial competence
(2) Tropical Diseases, hard-to-reach communities, nomadic groups. |
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| Dr Pierre Fongho is exploring experimentally the impact of genes driving metabolic resistance to insecticides in Anopheles funestus on its vectorial competence. Briefly, selected groups of mosquitoes (L119F GSTe2 or CYP6P9a/-b markers) are exposed to blood samples containing gametocytes of Plasmodium falciparum. Genes’ expression profile of the homozygote resistant and susceptible mosquitoes are compared later on to ascertain the effect/contribution of resistance genes on the level of immune reaction after infectious blood meals. |
He is also investigating the epidemiology of endemic diseases in hard-to-reach communities, notably the local and foreign (from Chad, Nigeria and Niger) nomadic pastoralists that exploit periodically the resources of the Logone floodplain, northern Cameroon. In a recent study, he established the presence of cases of Urinary Schistosomiasis among pastoralists and their vulnerability towards water-borne diseases in general.
Darus Tagne
