My conversation with Dr. Mosoka Fallah

Yesterday, I was pleased to speak via WhatsApp with Dr. Mosoka Fallah. He is currently based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia where he works for the Africa Center for Disease of the African Union leading a technical team that supports Covid-19 vaccine rollout to African countries.

His NGO, Refuge Place International, was started while he was a PhD student at the University of Kentucky. They built clinics in poor urban slums and isolated rural communities in Liberia to help the poor and vulnerble. They are also trying to start similar work in Sierra Leone.

I was interested to talk with Dr. Fallah for two main reasons – first, because I was impressed with his work during the Ebola epidemic in West Africa several years ago. And second, because he is a Wildcat! As noted above, Dr. Fallah received his PhD in microbiology, immunology, and molecular genetics from the University of Kentucky in 2011 (my father taught at UK from 1994 until 2014).

Dr. Fallah was born in Liberia and received his bachelor’s degree in his home country and a master’s degree from Kent State University. After his PhD, he received a master’s in public health from Harvard.

During Ebola, he worked extensively on contract tracing and was named Time Magazine’s Person of the Year, along with other health care workers. He has experience working in humanitarian crises and also has published interesting papers on Ebola and other topics including this recent one: Towards a better understanding of attitudes and beliefs held by traditional healers and recipients of traditional medicine concerning mental health conditions in post-conflict Liberia: a qualitative investigation. That paper caught my eye because of my work in Mozambique with traditional healers several years ago.

I am also interested in Dr. Fallah’s work in Ethiopia because I spent a bit of time in Addis Ababa in 2011 shadowing Dr. Rick Hodes, who has lived in the country for decades. Dr. Hodes’ approach, truly being invested in the health of the community, was inspirational.

Dr. Fallah has agreed to help me with a future blog post, including sharing some pictures of his work. In the meantime, you can follow him on Twitter and Linkedin.

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