Equatoguinean Margarita Roka Elobo is the first woman to earn a medicine doctorate in Equatorial Guinea. Roka Elobo researched intestinal parasites associated with HIV infection in Equatorial Guinea as part of her doctorate thesis at the University of Zaragoza, Spain.
The thesis addressed the problem of intestinal parasitic diseases in HIV-positive patients in an environment where HIV infection reaches 5.2% of the adult population and many intestinal parasitic infections are endemic. The research was conducted on 533 HIV-positive participants and 110 HIV-negative participants, and took place on the island of Bioko and the Continental Region.
Her thesis was carried out under the direction of Maria Pilar Goñi and Antonio Clavel, faculty from the Parasitological Department of Microbiology, Preventive Medicine and Public Health of the University of Zaragoza.
Roka Elobo has been an intern of the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation, and Coordinator of the Clinical Analysis Laboratory Castroverde of Malabo. She is the author of "Health Education Handbook," published in 2001. In 2008, she received the Elena Escanero Gella award for research in Health Sciences for her final dissertation project.