Leaving Tuesday!

It's been 17 months since 9 vet students came together to plan the latest chapter in the RVC Undergraduate Research Team's long history. Raising the funds through the generosity of RVC alumni, grant applications, college fundraisers and marathon sponsorship has been an adventure in itself, however here we are just a few days before our early morning flight to Dar es Salaam and it's clear that the adventure is only just beginning. The past few weeks have been challenging as we juggle rotations at the Queen Mother Hospital at college with making final logistical arrangements and last minute tweaks to the research plan. Our recent involvement with Google has developed enormously and we will now be collecting farm information and physical examination data on five smart phones. This will not only reduce the amount of paper we need to take and assimilate on the island, but the feedback we provide will valuable in developing the systems which are being put in place to help pastoral farmers and veterinarians in East Africa. We will be updating this blog regularly over the next four weeks, allowing you to follow the trials and tribulations of collecting ticks, bleeding cows and conducting interviews through the local lingo five thousand miles away on Zanzibar. We would like to say a huge thank you to all of those who have so generously supported the team in enabling us to reach this stage.