FOUR Medical Technology (Med Tech) professors were cited for their research paper by the Philippine Association of Medical Technologists (PAMET) last Sept. 6 at the Emilio Aguinaldo College.
Department of Med Tech chair Ma. Jennifer Tiburcio and professors Edilberto Manahan, Ma. Julieta Villar and Jocelyn Domingo won the Best Research Paper in the professional category of the annual PAMET research forum for their faculty research, “Incidence of Malarial Infection among the Residents of Sitio San Martin, Brgy. San Vicente, Bambang, Tarlac.” They were given the award despite the fact that their research was still in its first phase and is not yet completed.
Manahan, the research project leader, told the Varsitarian that the research found out that 14 of the 33 aytas tested from Sitio Martin were positive for malarial infection.
“This is a very significant discovery because unlike places such as Palawan, malaria is not known to be prevalent in the area where we did our research,” Manahan said.
He added that unlike their work, most of the papers presented during the forum were experimental researches on mice and plant extracts.
“The judges told us that our research has social impact and is very simple yet very significant, as our subjects were people belonging to the cultural minority, the aytas,” Manahan said. “Our subject also concerns a major health concern, malaria.”
Manahan said that they chose to study the area last July after the Office of Community Development reported incidents of on-and-off fever among residents of Sitio Martin, a community adopted by UST.
“The place is a forested mountain,” Manahan said. “Places like that are good breeding grounds for the mosquito carrying the Plasmodium parasite: the specie capable that causes malarial infection when it enters the body.”
Based on the tests they did on the the aytas blood samples, Manahan said they found out that the aytas were infected by two Plasmodium species, the Plasmodium vivax and Plasmodium falciparum.
This was the first time UST Med Tech Department joined the PAMET forum. The judges of the paper were Prof. Winifredo Deleon of the University of the Philippines and Prof. Esperanza Cabrera of De La Salle University. Jordan Mari S. De Leon & Adrian T. Elumba
