SCI Participation at 56^th Annual ASTMH Meeting in Philadelphia

The 56^th American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH) Annual Meeting was held during the 4-8 November of 2007 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. Several SCI staff and country collaborators attended and many of them gave presentations.

On Monday (05/11/07) SCI organized a well attended symposium entitled “Monitoring and Evaluation issues with regard to integrated control of Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs)” which was chaired by Prof Alan Fenwick (SCI Director, Imperial College) and Prof Peter Hotez (Chair of the Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Tropical Medicine of the George Washington University).

First presenter was Prof Joanne Webster (Director of the Surveillance and Monitoring SCI Unit) with a presentation entitled “Schistosomiasis and Neglected Tropical Diseases Control”. Prof Webster updated on progress for planning the monitoring and evaluation of expected future integrated programs against these infections. She raised issues on the design of these studies, what to measure, (including costs), sample sizes and frequency of follow up. Then Ms. Artemis Koukounari (SCI Senior Research Statistician) presented a selection of results and achievements from Mali and Tanzania in a presentation entitled “Results from current vertical schistosomiasis control programs”. Two presentations from the field completed the symposium: Dr. Narcis Kabatereine, Uganda's national schistosomiasis control programme coordinator, presented “East African experiences – Uganda” and Dr. Amadou Garba, Niger's national schistosomiasis control programme coordinator, presented “West African experiences – Niger” with both making reference to integration issues in their respective country.

Professor Joanne Webster also contributed a presentation entitled “A genetic comparison of S. japonicum recovered from mammalian hosts in the Philippines and China” to another symposium on that same day which focussed on “The Transmission and Control of Schistosoma Japonicum”.

On the Tuesday (06/11/07) a symposium entitled “Advances in Operational Research on Schistosomiasis” was chaired by the SCI Director-Prof Alan Fenwick. In 2006 the Schistosomiasis Research Program (SRP/SCI) managed by the DBL-Center for Health and Research and Development awarded funds to support operational research addressing schistosomiasis in endemic African countries. This was part of a broad effort to develop the basis for sustained schistosomiasis control and evidence for policy decisions at the national and international level. In this symposium the results of three of these funded projects were presented, one by Diana Karanja (on anaemia in Kenya) and one by Jimmy Kihara (on diagnostic techniques). The third was given by Dr Narcis Kabatereine entitled “Cost effectiveness, integration and sustainability of schistosomiasis control in Uganda”.
During the 8^th and 9^th of November representatives from a number of partner organizations (WHO, ITI, CDC, The Carter Center, Notre Dame and the Gates Foundation) attended a separate meeting on Neglected Tropical Diseases Projects with the purpose to review progress on the development of compatible methods for costing and cost-effectiveness (CE) analysis among the NTD projects funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and address other potential areas identified for coordination. WHO/NTD was represented by Dr. Dirk Engels, CDC by Dr Pat Lammie, Carter Center by Dr. Frank Richards, ITI by Dr Adam Zayan and Sonia Pelletreau, & Notre Dame/Haiti by Father Tom Streit. SCI was represented by the Programme Managers-Dr Lynsey Blair (Tanzania & Ghana), Ms Elisa Bosque-Oliva (W. Africa) and Ms Fiona Fleming (Uganda & Zambia) as well as Prof Alan Fenwick and Ms Artemis Koukounari. On the first day of that meeting Ms Fiona Fleming gave a presentation of key progress made by SCI on shared tools and CE action items from June integration meeting. On the second and last day of this meeting Ms Elisa Bosque Oliva gave an update of SCI integration in Burkina Faso, Niger, Tanzania and Uganda while Prof Alan Fenwick discussed other opportunities for integration, communication, coordination and mechanism for coordination. All attendees agreed to meet again in June 2008 to follow up on the issues afore mentioned.

© Schistosomiasis Control Initiative 2008

Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology
Imperial College London, St Mary's Campus, Norfolk Place, London W2 1PG

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email: schisto@imperial.ac.uk