World Melioidosis Congress 2016

University Of Florida, Gainesville FL

Investigators

Abstract

Proposal Summary Melioidosis is a disease prevalent in tropical and subtropical regions of the world, with Northern Australia and SE Asia being highly endemic. The disease and its etiologic agent Burkholderia pseudomallei, however, are increasingly found in other parts of the world and have been shown to be endemic on the Indian subcontinent and its neighboring countries, the Caribbean (including Puerto Rico), and Central and South America. Modeling predicts melioidosis potentially puts ~1.5 billion people at risk and because of the disease's high mortality rate may be one of the underappreciated, yet prevalent tropical and subtropical ?killer? diseases. A growing realization that melioidosis awareness, detection, diagnosis, treatment and prevention are a matter of great public health importance is now increasing the interest in this disease worldwide, while not loosing sight of B. pseudomallei's biothreat potential. There is an urgent need to bring together academic researchers, clinicians, and health care workers to disseminate knowledge, to educate, to renew and/or initiate collaborative efforts, and to put into clinical practice our knowledge of melioidosis diagnostics and therapeutics. Aside from smaller regional meetings, the World Melioidosis Conference (WMC) remains the premier melioidosis conference. The specific aim of this application is to secure funds for travel, accommodation and registration to enable at least 10-12 researchers - mostly trainees, young investigators and underrepresented minorities or scientists from underdeveloped regions of the world - to attend the 8th WMC (also known as WMC2016) that will be held in Cebu City, Philippines, from August 7-10, 2016. The main objectives of WMC2016 will be to bring together 250?300 scientists, clinicians, health care workers, postdoctoral research associates and students from around the globe to discuss: 1) new findings from academic laboratories and clinical settings, 2) means to put into clinical practice novel ideas, diagnostics and therapeutics to control and prevent melioidosis; and 3) to sustain such efforts beyond the conference by developing and/or maintaining strong collaborations between groups in the United States, Australia and Europe where much of the fundamental research is being conducted, and the Asian-Pacific region and other areas of the world where melioidosis is endemic. The key theme ?One Health? is used to promote melioidosis research and education in three major aspects: human health, animal health, and environmental health.