Rosanna Peeling - A Manitoban who is making a difference globally

On our flight to Toronto on Sunday, we found ourselves sitting next to Rosanna Peeling, a Manitoban who is making a difference around the world.

Rosanna was working in Winnipeg in microbiology on sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), when in the fall of 2000, she was invited by the World Health Organization to help develop better approaches to testing for sexually transmitted diseases like syphilis, gonorrhea and clamydia that could be widely used in developing world countries. Diagnostic tests have to be cheap and reliable under very hot conditions if they are to be usable in many of these countries.

Within a month of accepting a one year position, Rosanna had convened a meeting of more than 50 experts on STDs from around the world. On their recommendation, she developed an approach that has got teams of people working in laboratories and at field sites to improve the approaches being used to test for these STDs in developing countries.

With this success underway, she was then asked to continue at the World Health Organization to develop improved approaches to the diagnosis of a variety of other diseases from tuberculosis, to leishmaniasis. She has been engaged in this effort since then and does this from the World Health Organization offices in Geneva, commuting back and forth to Winnipeg when she can.

Well done Rosanna. In Manitoba, we are proud of the contribution you are making to global health.