Indo-UK Conference on Emerging and Re-emerging Infectious Diseases

An international meeting titled “Indo-UK Conference on Emerging and Re-emerging Infectious Diseases” was hosted by IUCBR & SSH, Mahatma Gandhi University Campus at Thalappady, from 25-26 February, 2019. The speakers were eminent persons from India and abroad and was attended by researchers and students from different parts of the  country. The conference was inaugurated by Prof. M K C Nair, Hon’ble Vice Chancellor of the Kerala University of Health Sciences. The first session opened with the Hamied Foundation Lecture by Dr David Wareham on “the Threat of AMR and multi-drug resistant Gram-negative infections”.

This was followed by lectures from Dr. Ankur Mutreja from University of Cambridge (Application of whole genome sequencing in the diagnosis of infectious diseases), Dr Ramamurthy from THSTI (Infectious diseases drug development), Dr Sabu Thomas from Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology (AMR in Kerala) and Dr. Sanjay Pal, Amrita University (Complementary approaches to combat antibiotic resistance). The session on Emerging Infectious Diseases: Threats to Human Health had talks by Prof. Dilip Mathai, AIMSR, Hyderabad (Acute Undifferentiated Febrile Illnesses in India), Dr Timothy Brooks (Meloidiosis), Dr John Jude Prakash from Christian Medical College, Vellore (Scrub Typhus), Dr. Debashis Mitra, CDFD (HIV), and Dr Krishnan Harshan, CCMB (HCV). Prof. Sajith Kumar, Govt. Medical College, Kottayam (Emerging & Re-emerging Infectious Diseases) delivered a revealing talk based on a Kerala Clinician’s perspective. The second day had an invited lecture by Dr. Timothy J G Brooks from Public Health England on the Diagnostic Services from Rare & Imported Pathogens Laboratory of UK. Dr. P Vijayachari, from RMRC, Port Blair, India (Leptospirosis), Dr E Sreekumar, RGCB, Thiruvananthapuram (Genomic insights in to the Dengue virus from Kerala),

Dr Stalin Raj of IISER, Thiruvananthapuram (MERS-Corona Virus), Dr Rajendra Pilankatta from Central University of Kerala (Targeting the Dengue virus) were the other speakers. Dr. Benny Cherian from Barts Health NHS Trust, UK and Dr Mary Varghese, Govt Hospital, Kottayam gave a comparison on clinical practice and infection control between UK and Kerala. Dr Sobha Kurien, Medical College, Kottayam spoke on the Emerging and Re-emerging infections in Kerala.

The meeting had a round table session and made the following recommendations:

 Need to collect accurate data on antimicrobial resistance in Kerala context,

 Establish a state-of-the-art laboratory for AMR detection; and research thereon,

 Build a repository of well characterized drug resistant strains, and

 Build a local reference system for detection of new and emerging infections.