Events
27 - 30 June
2007, Riga, Latvia
FIND at 4th Congress of the International Union
Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease
Some 800 people from Central and Eastern Europe attended the 4th Congress of the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease, Europe Region, which took part in Riga, Latvia, from 27-30 June 2007 at the Reval Hotel Latvija. FIND was an active participant during the conference holding two symposia and a booth during the four-day event.
The scientific programme, which on the first day included postgraduate courses, was conducted in English and Russian. Course topics ranged from lung disease and exercise, TB/HIV challenges in Europe, multidrug-resistant (MDR) and extensively drug resistant (XDR) tuberculosis (TB), to human resource development for health care workers in low- and mid-prevalent countries. FIND’s Head of Product Evaluation, Dr. Rick O’Brien, gave a course on the Prospectives for new diagnostics, drugs and vaccines for MDR and XDR-TB.
During the following days, conference participants, including respiratory specialists and physicians, TB experts, scientists, public health advocates and health professionals, attended various seminars and symposia that focused on the most important public health topics in TB and in respiratory diseases. In addition to discussing the status and challenges pertaining to TB and other lung diseases in Europe and particularly Eastern Europe, conference participants discussed new discoveries in basic sciences, clinical medicine, as well as the development of promising new diagnostic tests. The consequences of smoking-related lung diseases as well as the urgency and importance of fighting TB more effectively in the region were addressed in plenary sessions.
The first plenary session, dedicated to the 125 years since the discovery of the tuberculosis bacillus by the German Physician and Bacteriologist, Robert Koch, was entitled What is new in TB control and was co-chaired by Dr. Mario Raviglione, head of the World Health Organization’s Stop TB Department and Dr. Giovanni Battista Migliori of WHO/Italy.
FIND’s first symposium focused on New tools on tuberculosis diagnosis and treatment: from accuracy to applications and was chaired by Dr. Rick O’Brien and Dr. Madhukar Pai, FIND Consultant for latent TB infection. The following topics were presented:
- The interferon-gamma assays for the diagnosis of TB infection and disease and what are the areas of controversy, the applicability, feasibility and role of the test in high risk populations;
- The incorporation of the new test in European guidelines on diagnosis of latent TB infection; and
- New tools as regard to moving the agenda forward.
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| From left to right Dr. Juan Carlos Palomino (ITM), Dr. Abigail Wright (WHO), Dr. Heidi Albert (FIND), and Dr. Francis Drobniewski (HPA)
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Supported in part by two of FIND’s partners, BD Diagnostics and Hain Lifescience, FIND’s second symposium permitted attendees to learn more about the advances in the diagnosis of drug-resistant TB. This event was chaired by FIND Chief Scientific Officer, Dr. Mark Perkins together with Dr. Véronique Vincent, Scientist with the Tuberculosis Strategy and Health Systems Division of the Stop TB Department, WHO. Speakers included Dr. Heidi Albert, Consultant with FIND, Dr. Abigail Wright, Technical Officer at WHO, HTM/STB/THD, Professor Francis Drobniewski, Director of the HPA National Mycobacterium Reference Unit, UK, and Dr. Juan Carlos Palomino from the Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp in Belgium. Presentations covered topics on rifampin resistance and liability for predicting MDR TB and FIND’s demonstration projects in South Africa of rapid assays for MDR TB.
FIND Communications and Advocacy Coordinator, Jewel Thomas, also participated in a special session on communication, advocacy and outreach held during the STOP TB Partnership Europe meeting, which was held on 27 June 2007, in conjunction with the Union’s conference. Strategies to enhance such efforts in the region were identified and shared with other participants of the meeting.
A special workshop was held for journalists to learn more about the impact of TB nationally and globally, as well as to improve media coverage in their respective regions.
The congress in Riga was held under the auspices of Latvia's President, Mrs. Vaira Vike-Freiberga. The conference presidents were Dr. Janis Leimans (Latvia) and Union Board Member Professor Robert Loddenkemper (Germany). The chairs of the Scientific Committee were Professor Loddenkemper, Dr. Giovanni Battista Migliori (Italy) and Dr. Richard Zalenskis from WHO/Denmark.
Scientific programme
Official website
Presentations
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