„Infections of regional importance” – BAN Conference in Moscow

Michail Mikhailov from Chumakov Institute of poliomyelitis and viral encephalitis and Elena Malinikova from Russian Academy of postgraduate education in Moscow welcomed the participants of the Conference from Lithuania, Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Russia, Poland, USA, France, Switzerland and Sweden. Dr Maria Isaguliants, from the Karolinska Institute, started the Conference with an announcement of Network actions for the coming year.  Thanks to the Network, a team for pre-clinical cancer vaccine trials was built and also attempts have been taken to work on a hep-C vaccine, which is a very big step forward.

- If you can prevent hepatitis C, you can prevent cancer – added Maria Isaguliants.

Important to notice, Maria Isaguliants has been honored with a medal for her scientific contribution to the development of immunology and virology, being described as a “driving force of the Network”.

The Conference started with a session on Epidemiology of viral infections in the Baltic region. Saulius Caplinskas ( Center of Communicable Diseases and AIDS, Vilnius) stressed that what is most important in the fight against HIV is the current knowledge, based also on international cooperation, e.g. with foreign universities. It needs proper governance, carried out on time and with a budget commitment, as well as patient’s responsibility for his harmful behavior not only to himself, but also to the environment.

– What is common between HIV and diamonds? They are forever. We cannot manage without proper commercial management – young people cannot live without a computer – explained Saulius Caplinskas. That is why cooperation with media and being visible to the common audience is of utmost importance.

Jan Drobeniuc (Centers for Disease Control, Atlanta, USA) mentioned that some say elimination of hepatitis C is impossible. We are not able to ensure that, but until we try - this is our goal. The steps towards achieving it are provision of treatment and learning how to change the behavior of people. 8 to 12 million of hepatitis C infections are noted yearly and in total even 185 million people may be infected worldwide. In developing or poorly developed countries infections are related primarily to the unwise practices of injections and blood transfusions. New design of modern syringes might help to control at least the hospital transmittable hepC.

– Quality control is simple – people are difficult – summarized Jan Drobeniuc.

During the Conference, the burning issue of immigrants was also addressed. They would surely be a new source of infections that will increase the percentage of patients infected with HIV, so the question is HOW to reach this group and work on the disease awareness?

Thanks to technology, participants of the Conference were able to listen to two speeches performed by Patrick Medstrand from Lund University in Sweden and Anders Widell from Malmö University Hospital, who were unwell and not able to come to Moscow.

In the session dedicated to viral diagnostics, Saleem Kamili from Centers of Communicable Diseases in Atlanta discussed the up-do-date diagnostics in the field of HCV. He stressed that access to reliable methods of diagnostics is of great importance, since in Africa, numerous patients have been diagnosed with false positive HCV. Hopefully, advances in technology will soon allow for fast and reliable diagnosis using only a smart phone.

The conference was not only about presentation sessions and discussions. On Sunday afternoon, participants had the opportunity to join a guided excursion in the Moscow city centre.

Two heads are better than one

The afternoon session on Sunday was all about Baltic Antiviral Network. During the closed session for Network participants, members of BAN presented their achievements in 2014/2015 and plans for 2016, since it is the last year of BAN financing from the Swedish Institute. Team leaders from Baltic teams exchanged comments and observations as well as recommendations for future actions of each partner.

The goals for the upcoming year are to prepare a publication concerning trends in epidemiology of blood-borne infections. It will be a monograph with collection of ideas from the Network teams. Soon, team members will work on a leaflet with information concerning hepatitis.

During the final session, which focused on professional and public education in medicine, our team talked about the mission of Bio-Tech Media in health education. We can proudly say that our speech, received numerous questions from the audience, as well as advice on how to carry out the content of our portals.

The most likely place of the next Network Conference, scheduled for June 2016, is Lodz, Poland. This is great news for us, since such meeting will be a great opportunity to carry out a large scale promotion of virology issues. Thus, "See You in Lodz”.

Aleksandra Kowalczyk