The eruption of Mount Nyiragongo, an active volcano in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), led to the deaths of at least 30 people. There could however be longer term health implications for residents of the area. Patrick DMC Katoto, who has studied the health effects of volcanoes in the DRC, provides insights into the health risks that a volcanic eruption brings.
AuthorPatrick de Marie C. Katoto
Patrick de Marie is a lecturer and trained in medicine at the Catholic University of Bukavu-UCB (Democratic Republic of Congo-DRC). After years of clinical tropical medicine, he further performed clinical training at Université Catholique de Louvain, Saint Luc Hospital in Brussels (Belgium) before moving to Stellenbosch University (South Africa) for a two-year MSc in Clinical Epidemiology. He then embarked on a Ph.D. fellow at the KU Leuven in Belgium to assess environmental exposure and risk of respiratory illnesses in Kivu, DRC (the EERRIK Project).
Patrick de Marie's research includes experimental work and clinical-epidemiological studies of respiratory illnesses attributable to environmental pollution (from household air pollution to mining air pollution), with a particular interest in the association of exposure to pollutants with the high triple burden of Tuberculosis, MDR-TB and HIV infection. He is also interested in evidence synthesis (evidence-informed policy and clinical practice guidelines development) and in implementation science, especially for poverty-related diseases (vaccine-preventable diseases) in low and middle-income countries (LMICs).