Fahdi Alew is a Fall 2024 recipient of the Srinivasan Family Awards for Projects in Emerging Markets, an initiative run by the Center for Emerging Markets at Northeastern University to support student-led projects addressing critical challenges in emerging economies across the globe.
In the remote villages of Baringo County, Kenya, healthcare workers face a daily struggle against visceral leishmaniasis (VL)—a parasitic disease that disproportionately affects the region's most vulnerable populations. At their side is Fahdi Alew, a third-year Biology pre-med student from Northeastern University, who has traveled thousands of miles for a co-op to investigate how this neglected tropical disease intersects with other health challenges in the area.
With support from the Center for Emerging Markets, Fahdi has spent the past several months conducting research in Kenya's remote Tiaty region, where over 90% of Baringo County's VL cases occur. His work focuses on understanding the comorbidities between VL and other high-burden diseases such as HIV, tuberculosis, malaria, and malnutrition—conditions that compound one another in communities already facing limited healthcare access.
Fahdi's interest in global health originated in Professor Richard Wamai's course, Epidemiology of Pandemic Diseases and Health Disparities in the African Diaspora, where he first encountered the concept of neglected tropical diseases (NTDs). These illnesses disproportionately affect impoverished communities with limited healthcare infrastructure yet receive relatively little attention from global health initiatives. With prior hands-on experience as a certified nursing assistant in Maine and as a patient care associate at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston during his first co-op, Fahdi sought to connect his clinical experience with broader, systemic health challenges faced globally.
Now working in partnership with the TERMES Center and the African Centre for Community Investment in Health (ACCIH)—both led by Professor Wamai—Fahdi has immersed himself in fieldwork in the Tiaty region, serving populations marked by high poverty rates, low literacy, and limited access to care. These communities serve as a critical setting to explore how multiple diseases intersect and compound, worsening outcomes for already vulnerable populations.
Throughout his co-op, Fahdi has collected and analyzed retrospective data from hundreds of VL patient records spanning six years. He has conducted interviews with local clinicians, nurses, and laboratory staff to better understand the diagnostic and treatment challenges faced by those with overlapping conditions. Despite facing significant roadblocks—including a county-wide health worker strike at the beginning of his co-op—Fahdi demonstrated remarkable adaptability by deepening his data analysis and planning alternative research strategies with guidance from past co-op students and local colleagues.
Beyond the professional and academic significance of the work, the project holds deep personal meaning for Fahdi. With both of his parents born in northeastern Kenya—and his mother and siblings currently living in Nairobi—this co-op represents an opportunity to reconnect with his cultural roots while contributing to meaningful public health work in his homeland.
As his research continues, Fahdi hopes to contribute to more comprehensive care strategies for neglected diseases and bring attention to the urgent health needs of resource-limited communities. He aims to share his findings through academic presentations and publications, carrying this global perspective into his future as a culturally competent, equity-driven physician.
