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Manipal : Prominent speakers, both national and international, presented important information on infectious diseases at the 3^rd Manipal International Infectious Diseases Conference 2019 held here last week. Each of them came up with several aspects of common diseases and some newer ones too.

The conference was organized by Manipal Center for Infectious Diseases (MAC ID), Prasanna School of Public Health in association with the Department of Medicine, Kasturba Medical College, Manipal and McGill Global Health Program, Canada on the theme “Tropical Infections and Global Health”.

It was inaugurated by MAHE Vice Chancellor, Dr H. Vinod Bhat. He said that in the coming days, “One health” approach and surveillance should be the way forward for early detection of infectious disease outbreaks. Dr Poornima Baliga who was the guest of honour released the MAC ID newsletter ‘Contagion’. Dr Sharath Rao, Dean, KMC Manipal welcomed the gathering

In his keynote address, Sir Nicholas J White, Professor of Tropical Medicine at Oxford and Thailand spoke of, “Malaria: The past, present and future.” He traced the history of malaria, evolution of drug resistance in malaria and hinted that the malaria vaccines could potentially be valuable in low endemic areas to eliminate malaria.

Dr David Richard Bell, Global Health Expert from Seattle, USA spoke on Diagnostics of Acute fever: Technology Innovation meets reality and spoke on Challenges in availability and use of Point of care diagnostics, biomarkers for diseases severity and the importance of true costs of diagnostics for the national programme. He also highlighted on the methods available for detection of low level malaria parasitemia in elimination settings.

In another key note address, Dr Ravi Vasanthapuram, Professor of Neurovirology at NIMHANS Bengaluru highlighted the epidemiology of acute encephalitis syndrome, newer testing algorithms, and the need for early identification of treatable causes of encephalitis for improved outcomes.

Dr Sajeeth Kumar, Medical Superintendent and Professor of Medicine, Kozhikode Medical College, spoke on the Lessons learnt from Nipah virus outbreak in Kerala. Professor G. Arun Kumar, Director of Manipal Institute of Virology gave a talk on Emerging Viral Hemorrhagic Diseases such as KFD, Ebola, Dengue haemorrhagic fever and Crimian Congo Haemorrhagic fever(CCHF).

Prof Nicholas P J Day, Professor of Tropical Medicine at Oxford and Thailand gave overview of antimicrobial resistance globally, need for better ways of estimates incorporating clinical outcomes and alluded to antibiotic footprints as communication tools. Dr Jesse PappenbergPaediatric Infectious diseases specialist from McGill University, Canada spoke on Advanced Molecular Diagnostics/POC tests in respiratory infections and emphasized the need to choose diagnostics wisely and the need for influenza vaccination.

An informative panel discussion on, “Outbreak management: The Road ahead,” was led by Dr. Kavitha Saravu, joint coordinator MAC ID. Eminent panelists including Dr Sajeeth Kumar, Dr Shah Hossain, Dr Chiranjay Mukhopadhyay and Dr Arun Kumar emphasized the need for surveillance in the community and the lab, need for more laboratories equipped with skills and technology to detect the pathogens, coordinated rapid response system and the need for strengthening of infection prevention practices.