London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

This module is predominately laboratory-based with the ratio of contact time in practicals: lectures roughly 2:1. The practical sessions are an important point for extensive personal interaction with teaching staff both in terms of practical skills as well as to support for the theoretical content of the lectures. Students will gain hands-on experience in preparing specimens for identification, use of identification keys, dissection, bloodmeal analysis and the use of qPCR. A one-day visit is made to the research facilities and laboratories of the Natural History Museum, South Kensington. There is also a field trip for the collection of overwintering mosquitoes at Rainham Marshes NNR.

The overall module aim is to provide students with a practical understanding of the methods for sampling, identification and vector incrimination applicable to the most important arthropod vectors and snail intermediate hosts.

Intended learning outcomes

Upon successful completion of the module a student will be able to:

1. Prepare insect specimens for identification;
2. Accurately identify vectors of major diseases;
3. Understand Sampling methods for major groups of vectors;
4. Understand techniques for species identification of vector complexes;
5. Understand the principles and methods of vector incrimination.

Mode of delivery

This module is delivered predominantly face-to-face. Where specific teaching methods (lectures, seminars, discussion groups) are noted in this module specification these will be delivered by predominantly face-to-face sessions. There will be a combination of live and interactive activities (synchronous learning) as well as self-directed study (asynchronous learning).

Assessment

The assessment for this module has been designed to measure student learning against the module intended learning outcomes (ILOs) as listed above. Formative assessment methods may be used to measure students’ progress. The grade for summative assessment(s) only will go towards the overall award GPA.

The practical assessment for this module consists of a practical paper and a short answer paper, both will be held on-campus at LSHTM. 50% practical assessment, 50% short answer assessment Practical assessment lasts one hour with 6 elements (10 minutes per element) testing knowledge acquired from practical sessions. Short answer assessment lasts one hour with 6 questions on content obtained from both lectures and practicals. For both assessments, students can answer the questions in any order and work through the paper at their own pace (while adhering to the 60-minute timeframe). In the short answer assessment the use of bullet points and drawings are acceptable.

Credits

• CATS: 15
• ECTS: 7.5

Module specification

For full information regarding this module please see the module specification.