Filipino doctor wins 2 international awards

For seafarers’ health research

WALES, United Kingdom—Don Eliseo Lucero-Prisno III, a Filipino medical doctor based in Cardiff University here, won back-to-back awards from two different international health conferences in recognition of his research work on the health of seafarers.

Prisno, a Nippon Foundation Fellow at the Seafarers International Research Centre where he conducts studies on the health of the workers of the maritime industry, was judged to have the best studies submitted to the 11th Conference of International Society of Travel Medicine (ISTM) held in Budapest, Hungary on May 24 to 28.

He received an award amounting to $3,000, including a travel grant. He submitted two studies entitled, “International seafarers as patients: towards a model of an effective global health system” and “Global seafarers: why risky to STIs and HIV when they work and travel.”

According to the head of the jurors, Dr Assunta Uffer-Marcolongo of Canada, “it was interesting to note that not only one but both studies came out receiving the top scores out of many studies submitted and judged.”

ISTM President Frank von Sonnenburg of Germany congratulated the awardee.

The week after, Prisno received medals for the studies he presented at the First International Congress of Maritime, Tropical and Hyperbaric Medicine at Gdynia, Poland on June 4 to 6.

His paper presentations were “An analysis of the AIDS epidemic in the maritime industry” and “The anatomy of stress: the Filipino seafarer and his work.” The latter study was conducted together with Nerissa Espiritu and Eva Lopez of the National Maritime Polytechnic of the Philippines. This government-funded study is based on a survey of 3,000 Filipino seafarers. The conference was held to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Interfaculty Institute of Maritime and Tropical Medicine in Gdynia of the Medical University of Gdansk.

Dr Bogdan Jaremin, director of the Institute handed the medals. He also received a travel grant to attend the said congress.

Prisno believes that the health and welfare of seafarers should be analyzed so that appropriate policies may be formulated for Filipino seafarers, who altogether constitute a third of the world’s market.

He finds it quite unusual that the World Health Organization has designated Collaborating Centres for the Health of Seafarers to institutions in Poland, Ukraine, Germany, and Denmark, when these countries do not have a lot of seafarers.

He proposes that the Philippines establish such a research centre which would study the health and welfare of the Filipino migrants as they leave the country, as they work abroad, and as they return.

Upon finishing his PhD, Prisno wants to go back to the Philippines and continue conducting studies in the area of health and development especially of Filipino migrant workers.

In 2005 he won the World Science Forum research competition in Budapest, Hungary and in 2008 he received the British Council’s Shine International Student Award in the UK.

Editor’s note: The story was submitted by the Munting Nayon News Magazine. –INQUIRER.net