Dear Bryan,

Hello, my name is Brennan. I'm a junior biology major at the University of Notre Dame, and I work for a program here seeking to eliminate LF from Haiti. Following his research on LF in Haiti in the early 1990s, an ND biology professor, Thomas Streit, PhD CSC, was awarded $5.2 million from the Gates Foundation to build an LF-elimination program in the country. Since then, we have treated more than 2 million people with mass drug administrations in 17 of the highest prevalence communes. Now with a renewed grant, we are starting co-fortify local salt with DEC and iodine, in addition to continuing MDA.

We will need a LOT more financial and human support to succeed in this effort, but giving the utmost credit to our Haitian program administrators, the program has built significant capacity for such an ambitious effort. It's an unlikely one for a university to take part in as well, but Notre Dame has been the consistently present in trying to diminish the prevelance of this horrendous disease in Haiti.

We are based in Leogane. I would love to share more with anyone who's interested in the program. Feel free to contact me.

Mèsi anpil,
Brennan