MUNDO SANO´S EVENTS
Mundo Sano has reasserted its commitment to fight against unattended diseases.
On October 28 and 29, the XIII International Symposium on Control of Vector-Borne Diseases and the First National Conference on neglected diseases took place. Distinguished experts and researchers presented the progress made towards the prevention and treatment of diseases such as Chagas disease, dengue and leishmaniasis.
After two days of debate, Argentine and international experts and researchers warned about the growth of the so-called “neglected diseases” in the region, where the persistence of pathologies like dengue and Chagas disease together with other diseases such as Saint-Louis encephalitis and different types of parasitoses demand health authorities to double surveillance and the development of specific prevention programs to avoid the influence on public health and the increasing costs in the sector.
Those were the most relevant conclusions drawn from the “XIII International Symposium on Epidemiology Control of Vector-Borne Diseases” and the “First National Conference on Neglected Diseases” hosted by Mundo Sano which gathered, for two days in Buenos Aires, more than 600 participants and 30 remarkable national and international speakers.
“People migrations due to work, poor environmental conditions of large populations – such as access to safe water, barriers to appropriate access to the health service, added to poor research and development of novel treatments, are some of the reasons that account for the increase of vector-borne diseases in the Americas”, explained Sonia Tarragona, General Manager at Mundo Sano.
“Diseases typical of rural areas are now developing, thus becoming a threat to even larger and more complex populations”, said Tarragona, who added that it is essential to “coordinate the efforts of the public sector, the university, science, the private sector and community institutions to work together in the prevention of pathologies which have a marked impact as diseases and as economic burdens.
After giving an overview of the current state of affairs regarding pathologies such as Chagas disease, dengue, yellow fever and malaria, Sergio Sosa Estani, Head of Vector-borne Diseases at the National Ministry of Health, claimed that “progress in reference to intervention activities” is being noticed and added that “the most tangible example is the effect on the levels of dengue transmission comparing the 2009/2010 season with the 2008/2009 season, while in terms of Chagas disease control, the number of activities have had a significant increase, even though the impact of these activities will be appreciated in the long run”.
Dr. Estani made it clear that “all these improvements are both quantitative and qualitative”, and highlighted “the amount of work that has to be done. There is even a great deal of joint work to do with the Nation, the provinces, the municipalities and non-governmental organizations which are cooperating with this strategy”.
These meetings were held under the auspices of the National Ministry of Health, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), the National Chamber of Deputies, and the National Agency for Scientific and Technological Promotion, with the support of the provinces, municipalities and reference institutions. Among the speakers who travelled especially from abroad, were Patrick Lammie, from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) in the United States, Daniel Lozano, from the Universidad Mayor de San Simón, Bolivia, and Lorenzo Cáceres, from the Conmemorative Institute Gorgas of Panama, who analyzed the new tools for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of a group of neglected diseases which are increasingly occurring in the Americas.
The American Lammie devoted his speech to the plan of action mounted by Haiti to fight lymphatic filariasis, a parasitic infection transmitted by mosquitoes that is a cause of disability worldwide and that affects about 40 million people all over the world. On the other hand, the Bolivian speaker, Lozano referred to “the Platform Barcelona-Cochabamba: a novel model for treating and monitoring patients with Chagas disease”, implemented in Spain and Bolivia.
Dr. Alfredo Seijo, specialist in infectious diseases and a referent of the Zoonosis Service at Hospital Doctor Francisco Muñiz, dealt with the origin and symptoms of meningoencephalitis by flavivirus caused by the Saint-Louis virus, transmitted by the Culex mosquito. The specialist went through the characteristics observed in different studies carried out on patients suffering from this disease and described some of the symptoms that could be observed such as stiffness at the back of the neck, photophobia or spatial and temporal disorientation, among others. In addition, Seijo mentioned the cases which occurred in Argentina, in the province of Córdoba and especially those which are currently being observed in the metropolitan area of the City of Buenos Aires.
Delia Enría, representing the "Julio Maiztegui" National Institute for Human Viral Diseases, referred to the “risk of emergency of the Chikungunya virus in the Americas”. The Chikungunya fever is an emerging disease transmitted by a mosquito, with high prevalence on the Indic Ocean Islands, in Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia, and confirmed cases in the North of Italy. After describing the typical characteristics of this disease, the specialist called the scientific community to design a work strategy to avoid the spread of the virus.
Walter Almirón, specialist from the School of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences of the National University of Córdoba, warned about the threat to the central and northern areas in Argentina posed by viruses such as the Eastern and Western equine encephalitis, the Bunyamwera virus, the Venezuelan equine encephalitis and the West Nile virus.
After two days of debate, Argentine and international experts and researchers warned about the growth of the so-called “neglected diseases” in the region, where the persistence of pathologies like dengue and Chagas disease together with other diseases such as Saint-Louis encephalitis and different types of parasitoses demand health authorities to double surveillance and the development of specific prevention programs to avoid the influence on public health and the increasing costs in the sector.
Those were the most relevant conclusions drawn from the “XIII International Symposium on Epidemiology Control of Vector-Borne Diseases” and the “First National Conference on Neglected Diseases” hosted by Mundo Sano which gathered, for two days in Buenos Aires, more than 600 participants and 30 remarkable national and international speakers.
“People migrations due to work, poor environmental conditions of large populations – such as access to safe water, barriers to appropriate access to the health service, added to poor research and development of novel treatments, are some of the reasons that account for the increase of vector-borne diseases in the Americas”, explained Sonia Tarragona, General Manager at Mundo Sano.
“Diseases typical of rural areas are now developing, thus becoming a threat to even larger and more complex populations”, said Tarragona, who added that it is essential to “coordinate the efforts of the public sector, the university, science, the private sector and community institutions to work together in the prevention of pathologies which have a marked impact as diseases and as economic burdens.
After giving an overview of the current state of affairs regarding pathologies such as Chagas disease, dengue, yellow fever and malaria, Sergio Sosa Estani, Head of Vector-borne Diseases at the National Ministry of Health, claimed that “progress in reference to intervention activities” is being noticed and added that “the most tangible example is the effect on the levels of dengue transmission comparing the 2009/2010 season with the 2008/2009 season, while in terms of Chagas disease control, the number of activities have had a significant increase, even though the impact of these activities will be appreciated in the long run”.
Dr. Estani made it clear that “all these improvements are both quantitative and qualitative”, and highlighted “the amount of work that has to be done. There is even a great deal of joint work to do with the Nation, the provinces, the municipalities and non-governmental organizations which are cooperating with this strategy”.
These meetings were held under the auspices of the National Ministry of Health, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), the National Chamber of Deputies, and the National Agency for Scientific and Technological Promotion, with the support of the provinces, municipalities and reference institutions. Among the speakers who travelled especially from abroad, were Patrick Lammie, from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) in the United States, Daniel Lozano, from the Universidad Mayor de San Simón, Bolivia, and Lorenzo Cáceres, from the Conmemorative Institute Gorgas of Panama, who analyzed the new tools for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of a group of neglected diseases which are increasingly occurring in the Americas.
The American Lammie devoted his speech to the plan of action mounted by Haiti to fight lymphatic filariasis, a parasitic infection transmitted by mosquitoes that is a cause of disability worldwide and that affects about 40 million people all over the world. On the other hand, the Bolivian speaker, Lozano referred to “the Platform Barcelona-Cochabamba: a novel model for treating and monitoring patients with Chagas disease”, implemented in Spain and Bolivia.
Dr. Alfredo Seijo, specialist in infectious diseases and a referent of the Zoonosis Service at Hospital Doctor Francisco Muñiz, dealt with the origin and symptoms of meningoencephalitis by flavivirus caused by the Saint-Louis virus, transmitted by the Culex mosquito. The specialist went through the characteristics observed in different studies carried out on patients suffering from this disease and described some of the symptoms that could be observed such as stiffness at the back of the neck, photophobia or spatial and temporal disorientation, among others. In addition, Seijo mentioned the cases which occurred in Argentina, in the province of Córdoba and especially those which are currently being observed in the metropolitan area of the City of Buenos Aires.
Delia Enría, representing the "Julio Maiztegui" National Institute for Human Viral Diseases, referred to the “risk of emergency of the Chikungunya virus in the Americas”. The Chikungunya fever is an emerging disease transmitted by a mosquito, with high prevalence on the Indic Ocean Islands, in Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia, and confirmed cases in the North of Italy. After describing the typical characteristics of this disease, the specialist called the scientific community to design a work strategy to avoid the spread of the virus.
Walter Almirón, specialist from the School of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences of the National University of Córdoba, warned about the threat to the central and northern areas in Argentina posed by viruses such as the Eastern and Western equine encephalitis, the Bunyamwera virus, the Venezuelan equine encephalitis and the West Nile virus.
Comprehensive Approach to Dengue in Argentina
“Public-Private Association for the prevention of Dengue in Tartagal, Salta” was the presentation given by Marcelo Abril, Program and Project Director at Mundo Sano. Within the framework of the activities of CSR promoted by the oil company, Pan American Energy, Mundo Sano was convened to propose and carry out a program to control and study Dengue in Tartagal. This work involved the application of different strategies aimed at reducing the populations of Aedes aegypti (the dengue vector mosquito) in the region, and carrying out a plan of vector control, adapted to the local conditions.
The implementation of this program required staff coaching and training (both in field and laboratory work), drawing up a diagnosis of the situation, vector control and entomological surveillance; and the use of tele-epidemiological tools for the spatial analysis of the data registered in the field and in the laboratory.
“Economic burden and Dengue disease burden in Argentina” was the last of the presentations given during the first day, and it was in charge of Sonia Tarragona, General Manager at Mundo Sano. Her work focused on the Dengue epidemics which hit Argentina in 2009, causing—according to official records—more than 27 thousand cases and 4 deaths. This work analyzed the economic impact at an individual level (suffered by the affected individual and his family unit) and at a global level.
On her part, the economist analyzed the so-called dengue disease burden in Argentina by means of the calculation of loss of Years of Healthy Life for the whole population.
 |