Leading Experts Participate in Water Symposium at Stony Brook

STONY BROOK , NY - 1.2 billion people lack access to clean water and nearly 2 million children die each year due to the lack of access to water and adequate sanitation. Stony Brook University 's School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (SoMAS) addressed this issue by hosting its first ever Water Symposium on, "Achieving sustainable access to clean water in Tanzania: Impact on human health". The event was attended by several national and international experts, distinguished researchers, faculty, and students.

The symposium was chaired by: Mr. John Ng'ongolo, Charge d'affaires of the Permanent Mission of the United Republic of Tanzania to the United Nations; Pierce Gardner, Dean of International Studies at SoM; and Martin Schoonen, Professor of Geosciences and Interim Dean at Stony Brook Southampton.

Topics included diarrheal illness and childhood mortality, neglected tropical water-borne diseases such as in Tanzania , effects of climate change on water availability, chemical contamination of surface and groundwater, optimizing solar disinfection (SODIS), new concepts in water filtration, water harvesting and conservation, and Tanzanian water development policy.

"Water and sanitation is very important for development, and the provision of clean water is the greatest way of reducing diseases" highlighted Mr. Ng'ongolo when asked about the importance of the topics discussed at the symposium.

Visiting speakers addressing the topics included: Stony Brook alumnus Eric Mintz, Chief of the Diarrheal Disease section at CDC; Peter Hotez Professor and Chair of Microbiology at George Washington University; Jasper N. Ijumba , Senior Lecturer Department of Zoology from University of Dar es Salaam ; and Kevin McGuigan, Professor of Physiology RCSI in Dublin, Ireland. Also speaking were Stony Brook faculty Thomas O'Riordan (Graduate Program in Public Health), Kamazima Lwiza (SoMAS); Minghua Zhang (SoMAS), Jayme Melleker, (Graduate Program in Public Health), Benjamin Chu (Chemistry), and Henry Bokuniewicz (SoMAS).

Drs. Lwiza and O'Riordan, are both part of the symposium's organizing committee, in addition to Caroline Stamato of SoMAS. The three organized the symposium as part of their commitment with the Tanzania Health Consortium (THC) of Greater New York, which is a joint collaboration between several New York and Tanzanian-based academic institutions and foundations dedicated to sustainably improve health in Tanzania . The consortium is part of the Millennium Villages Project led by Jeffrey Sachs, Director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University and Special Advisor to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Dr. O'Riordan anticipates that the symposium and other Tanzanian initiatives to follow will establish ways of exchanging with students. Although no action agenda has been developed yet, Dr. Gardner recognized the potential for Stony Brook students to benefit from the collaboration with the THC

"The sequence that we hope will happen is that there will be some long term opportunities for students to be involved [and] to get experience," stated Gardner.

Dr. Ijumba from the University of Dar es Salaam emphasized important factors to ensure success of any efforts to be undertaken being: the commitment of individuals, funding, and addressing the problems in totality through interdisciplinary collaborations.

The Symposium was sponsored by the Office of the Provost, School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (SoMAS), the Graduate Program in Public Health, School of Medicine (SoM), the Department of Chemistry, and Stony Brook University in association with THC.

For more information on the symposium and proceeding materials visit: http://www.msrc.sunysb.edu/news/Tanzania.html