Climate Change and Planetary Health; Conquering COVID-19 with NIH's Anthony Fauci and Africa CDC's John Nkengasong; Climate Impacts on Tick Bites and Fetal Health; a Deadly Disease Re-Emerges in Bolivia; Unmasking Stealth Malaria; Race and Colonialism in Tropical Medicine
Planetary health, a discussion with Dr. Anthony Fauci and other influential COVID-19 experts; new findings on how climate change is affecting fetal health and tick behavior; and reckoning with tropical medicine's racist past are among the highlights of the 69th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene--a virtual gathering this year of the world's leading infectious disease fighters amidst a global pandemic.
Christiana Figueres, former Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), will deliver the keynote as climate change intensifies health risks. Figueres was instrumental in delivering the historic Paris agreement on climate change during her tenure at UNFCCC. Her appearance at TropMed is part of a broader focus at this year's meeting on how climate change could intensify the spread of disease and increase health disparities between rich and poor.
WHAT: The American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 69th Annual Meeting
WHEN: November 15-19, 2020 (Sunday to Thursday)
WHERE: Virtual
RSVP: For more information and to register for press credentials, please contact:
Anna Chen at +1 301 280 5743 or achen@burness.com
ONLINE: http://www.astmh.org/annual-meeting
On Twitter #TropMed20
Selected Highlights of the 2020 ASTMH Annual Meeting
COVID-19 at the Close of 2020: The Beginning of the End?: Anthony Fauci, MD, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, and John Nkengasong, PhD, Director of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, will be part of a high-profile panel probing lessons learned and future challenges for ending the pandemic. Dr. Nkengasong will discuss how African nations have thus far defied predictions of being overwhelmed. Richard Hatchett, MD, Chief Executive Officer of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), will update on progress of vaccine research and challenges of distribution and access. Heidi Larson, MD, PhD, director of the Vaccine Confidence Project at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, will explore how long-simmering vaccine mistrust could affect the impact of immunization campaigns. Moderating will be Helen Branswell, STAT's senior writer for infectious diseases and global health.
Hothouse for Health Threats: New research on climate-related health impacts includes a new study probing whether higher temperatures will make humans more appetizing to ticks that until now have preferred dogs; a new study from West Africa is generating critical data on how working in hot weather affects basic measures of fetal heath, like heartbeat and placental blood flow; an investigation into risks of a significant increase in rotavirus infections; and another on how climate change could intensify diseases affecting the body's biggest organ, the skin. Also, a special climate symposium includes a review of the 2020 Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change, due out the week of TropMed.
Race and Colonialism in Tropical Medicine: Two symposia will explore issues of race, equity and colonialism that still pose challenges for global health research. In the first, Linnie Golightly, MD, Associate Dean of Diversity at Weill Cornell Medical College, will explore the colonial and racist history of the field of “tropical medicine,” followed by a panel discussion chaired by Jonathan Stiles, PhD, Professor at Morehouse School of Medicine and an ASTMH Board member, and including Mishal Kahn, PhD, with the Decolonizing Global Health initiative at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, and Thomas LaVeist, PhD, Dean of the Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. A second symposium will feature scientists from Africa and Latin America, with a focus on developing a better balance of power between researchers in high- and low-income countries.
The Other Clone Wars: Not to be outdone by Star Wars' "clone wars," scientists are now cloning human antibodies--they are technically known as monoclonal antibodies or mAbs--to make therapies to battle important diseases, including COVID-19 and malaria. The growing interest in the power of mAbs is tied to significant advances in rapidly identifying and isolating promising antibodies in people and then purifying them into medicines ready for administration. Researchers will present the latest updates on this promising approach.
The Fall and Rise of the Human Challenge Trial: Controlled human infection studies entail enrolling volunteers who agree to be deliberately infected with a disease to test the efficacy of a vaccine or therapeutic. Scrapped for decades due to ethical concerns, scientists in recent years have developed new ways to safely and responsibly perform human challenge trials. Researchers will present the latest insights and debates over using human challenge trials to test interventions targeting various diseases, including a COVID-19 vaccine challenge trial that may soon get underway in the UK. A key issue: What if, unlike malaria, there is not a clear treatment for volunteers if the drug or vaccine candidate fails?
Obscure Deadly Hemorrhagic Fever Disease Re-Emerges in Bolivia: Scientists report on a recent spate of human infections in Bolivia of a dangerous rodent-borne disease called Chapare hemorrhagic fever that can also spread from human to human. Chapare virus was first discovered in Bolivia in 2003 and led to one known fatality, but not seen again until last year. Several cases in the recent outbreak involved fatalities in healthcare workers linked to an infected patient. Scientists will share the latest data on Chapare virus transmission and surveillance.
Snakebites: The "Neglected" Neglected Tropical Disease: There's a common myth that a bite from a venomous snake, while certainly unlucky, is also uncommon. Yet the reality is snakebites inflict an incredible amount of death and suffering in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Researchers present the results of a major effort to provide a new, more accurate estimate of death and disability from snakebite. There is evidence that in certain regions bites from the likes of cobras and kraits may be a bigger burden than HIV/AIDS or malaria.
Ending Malaria's High-Risk Game of Hide and Seek: Although not as deadly as the Plasmodium falciparum strain of malaria, P. vivax has the unique ability to hide dormant in the human liver--undetectable yet capable of repeatedly re-emerging to cause new infections and also spread the parasite back to mosquitoes. Researchers will offer new insights into a promising test to detect the P. vivax malaria parasite when it has entered its dormant phase--critical for preventing disease relapse and reducing transmission.
Globetrotting Wonder Drug: From Malaria in Africa to Backyard Chickens in the U.S.: Researchers will present a pair of studies that examine the potential of the drug ivermectin to prevent transmission of mosquito-borne diseases. In Africa, where ivermectin has long been used to combat a range of intestinal parasites, there is evidence that mosquitoes that feed on people treated with the drug may be less likely to transmit malaria. In the United States, researchers are using backyard chickens to test the drug's capacity to slow West Nile virus transmission from birds--which serve as the principle reservoir--to mosquitoes.
Ebola Innovations Can End New Outbreak--and Offer Lessons for COVID-19: The rapid emergence of effective drugs and vaccines to fight Ebola is one of the most impressive medical breakthroughs of the last few decades. Researchers look back at how these tools were developed and how they can be used in quelling a new outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Lessons learned in developing a new arsenal of interventions in the midst of the Ebola crisis could be instructive for developing new innovations to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.
Smallpox Eradication Turns 40, But Other Pox Threats Remain: At a time when the threat of infectious disease is palpable to everyone on the planet, experts mark the 40th anniversary of smallpox eradication with reflections from veterans of this historic battle--and with new assessments of pox viruses that continue to pose a threat, including monkeypox, which has recently caused outbreaks in Nigeria. There also was an outbreak in the U.S. in 2003, the first outside of Africa. Though not on par with smallpox, monkeypox is capable of causing serious illness.
LGBTQ Discrimination is a Health Hazard: Researchers present new insights on the significant array of health problems encountered by members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer communities in low- and middle-income countries. They will discuss how the continued criminalization and marginalization of LGBTQ individuals is linked to a greater burden of disease--along with higher rates of substance abuse and suicide--and offer evidence to drive a greater focus on social justice, human rights and patient care.
The Arbovirus Family: Annoying Locals, Dangerous Newcomers: Researchers consider the latest evidence from South America for using a common bacteria to control Aedes mosquitoes that carry dengue, Zika, chikungunya, West Nile, and yellow fever--five arboviruses once restricted mainly to Africa that have made their way to the America and beyond. Meanwhile, in Africa, most mosquito control efforts today remain focused on Anopheles mosquitoes that spread malaria. New research probes whether Africa should also be targeting Aedes.
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