A team of researchers in Ghana, West Africa, is trying to determine if environmental changes are related to outbreaks of one of the most neglected but treatable diseases in the tropical world. (Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons/http://commons.wikimedia.org)

PENN STATE (US)—An international team of researchers is in Ghana as part of a five-year effort to investigate how changes in the environment affect a deforming tropical disease called Buruli ulcer.

“We believe that Buruli ulcer outbreaks are triggered by increased environmental vulnerability resulting from disturbance in the form of more extreme and frequent rainfall, and slow landscape changes due to deforestation, agriculture, and mining activities,” says Petra Tschakert, assistant professor of geography at Penn State.

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