Members of the ECOM project will gather for a final symposium on November 10th 2015 in Stockholm, prior to the European Scientific Conference on Applied Infectious Disease Epidemiology (ESCAIDE). ECOM – which stands for Effective Communication in Outbreak Management – is an EU funded project that aims to develop strategies for improving risk-communication during major pandemic outbreaks in Europe.
The 2015 ESCAIDE conference will take place on 11-13 November 2015. It will be hosted at the Stockholm Waterfront Congress Centre, in the heart of the city. The ESCAIDE programme will offer a huge range of exciting presentations, posters, seminars and workshops on all aspects of infectious disease prevention and control.
Italy is facing a serious drop in vaccine coverage, which are falling close to – and in some cases even below – the target set by the Minister of Health in the current national plan for vaccine prevention. This is a serious problem for public health, since, for infections transmitted from man to man (tetanus being an exception), a high coverage is necessary to protect those people that cannot be vaccinated either because of their age or because of clinical reasons, such as for cancer therapies, through the mechanism of herd immunity.
From August 30 to September 5, the “Ettore Majorana” Centre for Scientific Culture in Erice hosted the “Mathematical and Computational Epidemiology of Infectious diseases” international conference. Aim of this event was to illustrate the major areas of research in mathematical and computational modelling of the spread of infectious diseases, and the huge variety of tools and approaches that are currently employed.
Infectious diseases not only impact on people’s health conditions, but also on several socio-economic aspects. Facing epidemics and pandemics is thus a major challenge for both science and society, a challenge that requires a multidisciplinary approach. Within this context, the first ASSET Summer School will be held in Rome, on September 21-24, at the Italian National Institute of Health (ISS).
A conference about the socio-economic impact that epidemics and pandemics may have will be held in Milan, October 27, with the collaboration of ASSET project. The event was inspired by the recent Ebola outbreak in West Africa, which brought significant consequences on the economic and social structures of the three countries involved by the epidemic.
The report published in March 2015 by Medecins sans frontières speaks out clearly against the “global coalition of inaction” and the “vacuum of leadership” in the Ebola crisis in West Africa. Those who were struggling in the field against a huge and out-of-control emergency, without the necessary resources, list the main causes of such a situation: lack of political will, inexperience, and, sometimes, simply fear.
Undoubtedly, epidemics and pandemics are good examples of extraordinary circumstances that may require extraordinary measures. Such exceptionality, however, should not provide an alibi for pandemic planners and policy makers to ignore fundamental human rights. This is why ethics should always be a key element to be considered when planning a proper response to such global health threats.
