BACHELOR OF SCIENCE HONOURS DIGITAL DISEASES SURVEILLANCE AND ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH (HDDSEH)
| Module Code | Module Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
| HDDS105 | Principles of Environmental Science |
This course will take an interdisciplinary approach to consider the challenges relating to climate change, biodiversity, water resources, natural hazards, and technological risks. |
| HDDS207 | Cell Biology | The main aim of this course is to study eukaryote and prokaryote cells and develop an understanding of key concepts within fundamental cell biology. The student will gain practical and theoretical knowledge through laboratory experimentation and observational microscopy. |
| HDDS201 |
Environmental and Applied Microbiology |
The main aim of the course is to develop an understanding of key concepts in the application of microbiology. The course will look at the classification of micro-organisms and examine the interactions between micro-organisms, animals and the environment. The student will learn to interpret data in relation to microbial population dynamics.Fundamentals and emerging issues of health significant microorganisms (bacteria, viruses, protozoa) from water, air, soil and food, and their sources, transmission routes, treatments, detection methods and study tools hence the course will build awareness and skills environmental microbiology. |
| HDDS203 | Radiation Pollution and Public Health | This course students will be able to determine the structure of matter. Topics include radioactivity and radiation, water and air pollution. The student should be able to distinguish the different types of radiation and pollution and their impact on the environment and public health. This course also examines the harmful substances potentially present in the air, water and soil environments, and the technological options and legislative processes that assess and/or control pollution. |
| HDDS102 | Fundamentals of Environmental Health | Students will be able to analyze the roles of organisms as part of interconnected food webs, populations, communities, and ecosystems, recognize environmental risks to health and the key steps and principles of environmental health and demonstrate the roles, methods and responses of different sectors (research, health, public policy) in raising community awareness of environmental health issues, Survey of environmental influences on human health and strategies for prevention considering source emissions, environmental fate and transport, human exposure, dose, and biological effects. |
| HDDS202 | Principles of Toxicology | This course benefits students in environmental science, engineering and public health by exposing them to principles, models, methods and policy at the interface of environmental science and public health. The course also integrates the principles governing how chemicals in the environment are transformed by physiological processes and the toxic manifestations therein, to inform requisite environmental public health policy. |
| HDDS403 | Environmental Monitoring, Climate change and human health | This course is tailored to develop an appreciation for field biology which will allow the student to assess a range of variables that are associated with environmental and ecological monitoring. The student will be able to critically evaluate these techniques for assessing biodiversity and develop the tools to investigate and predict responses to changing internal and external conditions. This course will be able to train students to recognize the current controversial issues about climate change, including global warming and summarise the evidence about climate change on human health. Topics also include identification of major human diseases associated with climate change and possible mechanisms, climate change human health impact. Overall, the student should be able to discuss and debate major climate changes and human health. |
| HDDS103 | Biodiversity and Ecosystems | This course will introduce concepts of biodiversity, its origins and maintenance in the face of climatic uncertainty. |
| HDDS205 | Molecular Genetics and Environmental Epigenetics | Epigenetics is an exciting and rapidly growing field of science, with increasing applications in molecular biology, epidemiology and environmental science. The purpose of this course is to enable the student to describe general concepts of epigenetics, evaluate various technologies for DNA methylation analyses, describe the importance of the relationship between environmental exposures, lifestyle, and epigenetics, summarise how environmental toxicants affect aging and human diseases and apply epigenetic biomarkers for environmental exposure in epidemiology, environmental sciences, and molecular biological sciences. |
| HDDS206 | Management of Solid and Hazardous Waste | Topics taught in this course will include origin, nature, collection, transportation and disposal or storage of solid and hazardous chemicals; resource recovery; waste and health; administrative and legal aspects; trans-frontier transport; enforcement of waste management regulations, Zero waste concept and Selected cases of waste product regulation. Students to visit rubbish dumps and landfill sites within and around Harare and observe the sorting, transportation and other processes related to waste management. |
| HDDS107 | Food Hygiene, Disease Prevention and Control | This course will focus on Food Hygiene, Microbiology; Biochemistry; Food Poisoning; Planning of Food Service Premises; Production, contamination, preservation, Disease Prevention and Control spoilage and inspection of the different food types. |
| HDDS402 | Geographic Information Systems and Remote Sensing | The course includes the following topics; Spatial concepts, Spatial relationships, Components of GIS, Principles of Remote Sensing. Application of GIS to environmental data will be enforced in this course. |
| HDDS204 | Biotechnology and the Environment | This course will introduce the basic knowledge of biotechnology with application to living organisms and industrial processes, food and energy production, modern concepts of gene, enhancer promoter and structural part, gene manipulation techniques for increased agricultural production and improved animal and human health. The student will also acquire knowledge on engineering microbes for environmental management, environmental implications of biotechnology, release of GMOs into the environment, genetically modified foods, health effects international regulations. |
| HDDS404 | Epidemiology | This course will help the student define what is Epidemiology of Environmental diseases in human. The main purpose for the course is for the student to be able analyse and present Epidemiological statistics; Risk factor analysis; Basic Biostatistics, occupational and environmental epidemiology, clinical epidemiology, epidemiology and disease prevention. |
| HDDS405 | Environmental and Human Health Risk Assessment | The purpose of the course is to develop a basic understanding of risk characteristics and risk analysis, describe the tools and process of risk analysis. Topics include risk assessment and its role within the risk management process, environmental laws in Zimbabwe and their compliance strategies, hazard, vulnerability and risk assessment methodologies. The student should be able to differentiate between risk assessment and risk management, develop a basic understanding of how to conduct and evaluate an uncertainty analysis for a risk assessment, and critically review existing hazard and risk based standards/guidelines and the rationale supporting the guidelines. |
| HDDS208 | Ecology of Infectious Diseases | This course provides an introduction to the ecology of infectious diseases. The student will be able to investigate infectious disease transmission and control in single- and multi-host systems and for vector-borne diseases. In the course, the student will develop an overview of various categories of pests and their medical, veterinary and economic importance. The course will focus on diseases of importance to Africa and in particular Zimbabwe and the region e.g. malaria, trypanosomiasis, schistosomiasis, fascioliasis as well as control of non-vector based diseases |
| HDDS401 | Research Methods and Project Planning |
This course is designed to give students the necessary skills for planning, implementation, analysis and reporting in preparation for your final year dissertation. This course will enable students to develop core research skills that are fundamental to scientific research design, irrespective of discipline. |
| HDDS405 | Environmental and Human Health Risk Assessment | Students will learn about the development of the formal risk assessment process, its role in environmental and public health regulation in the United States and the four fundamental steps in a risk assessment. Students will learn about the interface between the risk assessment and risk management process. |
| HDDS108 | Water and air Contamination: Sources and Health Impact | Topics focus on understanding the sources, the transport mechanisms and the fate of microbial and chemical contaminants in water, human exposure risks, tracking methods, linking to other environmental matrices and the public health impacts. This will enable the student to determine the different air contaminants and their effect on the environment as well as public health particularly the principles and practices of human exposure. Monitoring of contaminants in water, soil and air including field sampling, analytical instrumentation, and methods. |
| HDDS406 | Environmental Law and Policy for Public Health | This course will focus on basic concepts of environmental law and policy relevant to public health practice. |
