Belfast Telegraph (Mar 27, 10:15 AM) AN Ulster paediatrician left for central Africa this week to test a new treatment that could save the lives of many children suffering from a horrific form of cancer.
And, ironically, the man who first discovered and plotted the previously unknown disease is from the same county.
Enniskillen paediatrician John Phillips is currently in Malawi where he will stay for six weeks to oversee a project aimed at improving treatment and diagnostic tests for Burkitt's Lymohoma.
It was Fermanagh man Denis Burkitt who gave his name to the variety of cancer which he came across while working as a surgeon in Uganda.
Mr Phillips, who has now retired from the Erne Hospital, has seen the disease many times during his extensive work in Africa.
He explained that both malaria and the Epstein Barr virus play a part in the formation of the tumours in this form of cancer - which affect the B-lymphocytes in the body's immune system.
Sufferers often end up with huge swellings in the face and eyes and most people die within six months of the first symptoms if the cancer goes untreated.
In Malawi, Mr Phillips is trialling a new treatment by combining cyclophosphamide, a drug that can have dramatic effects in some case, with another drug that has shown promise in laboratory tests.
He hopes that in combination the drugs will cure many more people.
Mr Phillips, who was born in southern India, was drawn back out into the wider world once he had qualified as a doctor.
After university he investigated the possibility of medical missionary work and went on to spend many years in Nigeria and Malawi.
And it was here in 1986 that he came across the mystifying case of a small boy who just did not seem to respond to treatment.
Having watched a TV programme in the UK about a strange new disease called Aids, Mr Phillips carried out an HIV test on the boy which proved positive.
The youngster died the same weekend - the first child in Malawi to be identified as an Aids patient.
And by the time the Enniskillen man left in 1994 to return home to a position in the Erne Hospital, many more cases had appeared.
Mr Phillips is now involved in a number of cross-community ventures and, as an ecumenist, concluded: "There are much bigger differences and things to get excited over than the difference between Protestant and Catholic. We are all Christians."
