Month: June 2021

After a relaxing 3 day weekend at the beach, I started my week working remotely for the San Juan CDC HQ helping with file conversions using a program created by one of the data scientists there. From an epidemiological perspective, it was interesting seeing how the data was stored and what goes into understanding the codebook used to decipher it. I personally have never dealt with such a large and intricate data set, so seeing the internal organization of it all makes it easier to exercise my epi-trained brain on how it is analyzed. I have also enjoyed collaborating with the other interns and have learned about some valuable resources they use in their programs. I have also taken it upon myself to start on an introductory modeling course in preparation for next semester when I have free time in the office.

For the rest of the week, I ran routes for sample pickups for both COPA and COCOVID. I still enjoy interacting with the residents of Ponce and seeing the city. In other relevant news, as of June 24th, a committee met to present and vote on the usage of the dengue vaccine, “Dengvaxia”. It was passed 14-0 by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACPI). Have done a little research about the efficacy of the vaccine, I found it interesting the majority opinion is pushing to accept the vaccine here considering its flaws.

This exciting week was concentrated on working with COPA. My main takeaway from this week was understanding all the community partners that were involved in making these programs run. I started out the week working with the recruitment team. Meaning we would go in the 14 different neighborhood zones and try to enter families in the study. This is tedious work and sometimes not fruitful, however, it is crucial for longitudinal studies. I also continued my normal 12-month COPA participant visits and even got to interview a child. During one of the visits, a next door neighbor had a mosquito trap, having done previous work with these traps last summer I could easily identify it. After a bit of question, I learned a little bit more about PRVCU, or Vector Control Unit. PRVCU is the government program that is involved in putting down these traps. To my surprise, the next day someone from PRVCU came in and did training on how to sample and look for larvae as well as inspecting porches. Turns out PRVCU data on mosquito traps are used in conjunction with the COPA study, making them an incredibly important partner.

The majority of this week was spent working with COCOVID. On Tuesday, I attended a training to go over patient communication and the ethics of both the COCOVID and COPA study. Having learned about the IRB approval process and HIPPA requirements in the past, everything was as expected when handling sensitive health data. Consent and assent from both children and adults are important, especially when handling a biological sample. Interacting with the community is a major part of this job considering that with COCOVID there are weekly visits and sample collections and with COPA there is a yearly visit. All patient communication is done in Spanish, so for now I do not interview patients, just help with paperwork and sample processing. I am still in the process of picking up Puerto Rican Spanish and especially focusing on medical terminology.

During the COCOVID program routes, not only did I get to inadvertently explore the city of Ponce and get to know the community, but I also got to understand the people and their reaction to the COVID pandemic. For starters, masks are still worn by a majority of the population and there is little pushback compared to what I was seeing when I left Georgia. Part of the COCOVID questionnaire is to see if the participant has been vaccinated or not. To my surprise, almost all participants we visited were vaccinated and supported vaccination without hesitation. As of June 7th, the mask mandate has been dropped but I have not noticed a difference in mask usage.

I landed in Puerto Rico on May 26th, since then I have been completing a slew of paperwork and checking in with the CDC main office in San Juan. I traveled to Ponce and explored the city before starting my first day on the 2nd.

Upon the arrival on my first day, I was given a tour of the office in the medical office of the Centro Médico Episcopal San Lucas. I will be working on 3 different projects and shadowed all three the past week. Below is a brief overview of my understanding of each program.

Day 1 & 4: COPA program: This is the long-term longitudinal study that involves going to recruited members houses to take blood samples and interview for mosquito exposure and perception.

Day 2: COCOVID program: This is a nested cohort study within the COPA program adapted for the COVID-19 pandemic. This involves the weekly collection of nasal swabs of participants.

Day 3: SEDS program: Symptomatic surveillance within the hospital. Patients with arboviral symptoms are identified and recruited, Blood samples and nasal swabs are taken.