At HSPH, Jave enrolled in the Summer Program in Clinical Effectiveness. Founded 14 years ago, the program is a joint effort of HSPH, HMS, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Massachusetts General Hospital. Physicians learn about clinical research methods or health care administration during seven weeks of intensive study. Nearly 900 physicians have undertaken the program since its inception, and this year more than 150 students enrolled.

Co-directors of the program are Arnold Epstein, chair of the Department of Health Policy and Management; E. Francis Cook, professor in the Department of Epidemiology; and David Bates, associate professor of medicine at HMS.

Jave had come to Harvard in July as a Gates Foundation fellow at Partners in Health, a non-profit organization based in Cambridge that collaborates with the Program in Infectious Disease and Social Change at HMS.

As part of the fellowship, Jave joined the Program in Clinical Effectiveness to learn tools to gather and analyze data about tuberculosis transmission and treatment rates in Peru.

Tuberculosis is a highly infectious disease caused by bacteria, which spread through the air when an infected person coughs. The disease kills more than two million people every year. Although drug treatments are available, they have become increasingly ineffective as strains of the bacteria have become resistant to the treatments.

Peru already has a good system to register tuberculosis cases, said Jave. WHO has called the national program one of the world's most successful, with the incidence rate of tuberculosis nearly halving between 1991 and 1999.

Peru, light area, has one of the highest incidence rates of tuberculosis in the Americas.

Jave wants to build on that success, saying that the country needs a better system to track patterns of drug-resistant tuberculosis. Despite the fact that tuberculosis treatment is free in Peru, an estimated 40,000 Peruvians are infected with the disease, he said. The number can be explained in part because about 15 percent of all new cases in Peru involve drug-resistant bacteria, he said.

"It is necessary for us to collect accurate data if we are to ever understand and change the course of this problem," said Jave.

Jave is a physician at Dos de Mayo Hospital in Lima, Peru and a coordinator of the tuberculosis research unit at San Marcos University. When he returns to Peru this month, he will join the Peruvian National Tuberculosis Program.

As part of the Program in Clinical Effectiveness, Jave took courses in clinical epidemiology and biostatistics. He said he now feels he has the statistical analysis tools to help public health officials know how tuberculosis is spreading, how many new cases are being reported, and how many people are relapsing after treatment.

Meeting Harvard faculty and other tuberculosis experts, as well as having access to Harvard’s research resources such as the Countway Library of Medicine, also aided him tremendously, he said.

"I learned so much while I was here," said Jave. "In Peru, we need to increase awareness about tuberculosis and knowing how to look at scientific data about the spread of the disease is a fundamental way we can help stop it."