Medical Parasitology in the Philippines
For more than a decade now, the best-selling Philippine Textbook of Medical Parasitology has served as an invaluable tool for graduate and undergraduate students, as well as medical and paramedical professionals in the public health sector. This third edition, entitled Medical Parasitology in the Philippines, contains an updated version of the global, regional, and national status of parasitic diseases, with particular focus on the Philippines, as well as Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific Regions. In this latest edition, the life cycles developed by the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are utilized, and as in the other earlier editions, Bench Aids developed by the World Health Organization are included for reference purposes. For the first time, relevant policies and guidelines from the Department of Health are listed for further guidance of the readers. This edition also includes new sections that address recent developments in the field and nationally relevant global interests such as neglected tropical diseases, preventive chemotherapy, emporiatrics, and laboratory biosafety.
About the Editors
Vicente Y. Belizario Jr. is a Professor in the College of Public Health, University of the Philippines Manila. He was formerly the Vice Chancellor for Research and Executive Director of the National Institutes of Health in the same university. He is currently on secondment to the Department of Health, Republic of the Philippines, and serves as Undersecretary for Technical Services.
In 1981, he earned his Bachelor of Arts in Humanities degree cum laude from UP Diliman. He then received his Doctor of Medicine degree from the College of Medicine, UP Manila in1985 and completed his Master in Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (MTM&H) from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, Maryland, USA in 1991 through a fellowship from the World Health Organization (WHO).
Shortly after coming back from his graduate studies, he began to pursue researches on parasitic diseases in the areas of epidemiology, diagnosis, treatment, and control. His early research interests dealt with malaria and lymphatic filariasis. In the last several years, a majority of his research work have focused on neglected helminth infections, such as soil-transmitted helminth infections, schistosomiasis, and foodborne trematodiases.
In the course of his research career, he has published more than 70 scientific articles on parasitic diseases in both local and international peer-reviewed journals. He is a contributor to the Philippine Textbook of Pediatrics. He is a recipient of various honors and awards in the areas of teaching, research, publications, and public service. His published research findings have been cited by the Department of Health (DOH) and the WHO as bases for policy formulation and program implementation. The tools used for these various scientific works have also been shared in many training activities with national and regional staff of the DOH as well as health workers in local government units in the country.
He served as member of the Research and Strengthening Group and later as member of the Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), World Bank, and WHO Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (WHO-TDR). He is a member of the Soil-Transmitted Helminthiasis Advisory Committee, Task Force for Global Health (Children Without Worms). He also serves as country representative and Vice Chair of the Steering Committee of the Forum for Ethics Review Committees in Asia and the Western Pacific (FERCAP).
Winifreda U. de Leon is a former professor from the College of Public Health, University of the Philippines Manila. Soon after retirement, she continued her various research works as contributor and consultant in the Neglected Tropical Diseases Study Group in the National Institutes of Health in UP Manila.
She is a registered Medical Technologist and earned her Bachelor of Science in Medical Technology from Far Eastern University in 1965. She then received her Diploma in Applied Parasitology and Entomology from the Institute for Medical Research, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia under a SEAMEO-TROPMED scholarship in 1974 and completed her Master of Public Health from the College of Public Health, UP Manila in 1980.
She is one of a few experts in Diagnostic Parasitology in the Philippines who received training from the Institute of Medical Research in Malaysia and Faculty of Tropical Medicine, Mahidol University in Thailand. She has conducted numerous trainings on Diagnostic Parasitology across the country and is a most sought-after lecturer on the said topic.
She is a recipient of various national awards such as “Most Outstanding Medical Technologist” from the Philippine Association of Medical Technologists, Inc. in 2006 and the “Professional Regulation Commission Outstanding Professional of the Year in the Field of Medical Technology” in 2010.
She has been involved in research works focusing on diagnosis and epidemiological surveillance of malaria and neglected tropical diseases and has published more than thirty scientific articles in local and international peer-reviewed journals.
Aside from her numerous endeavors on both academic and research, she was also a contributor in books, such as Ascariasis and Its Prevention and Control published by Taylor & Francis Ltd. in 1988 and Nursing Practice in the Philippines published by the Department of Health in 2002.