Report from Europe – July 2012
The 27th congress of the European Branch of the IUSTI will take place in Antalya in Turkey, 6-8 September 2012 with the title ‘STI and HIV: time for protection’
(see: www.iusti2012turkey.org/ ). The local hosts and co-presidents of the congress are Prof Demir Serter and Dr Deniz Gökengin. The International Scientific Committee for the meeting is co-chaired by Prof Michael Skerlev and Dr Derek Freedman. This is the first congress to be held in Turkey so it is a particularly important one for the Branch and we are all looking forward to a very stimulating meeting in a delightful setting. An innovative element in the scientific programme is the inclusion of a variety of workshops on different aspects of sexual health and venereology.
In 2013 the European Branch will not be holding a separate congress but will be contributing to the success of the joint meeting of the 14th World IUSTI and the 20th ISSTDR (International Society for STD Research) which will be held in Vienna, 14-17 July. This meeting has the title ‘Threatening past – promising future’ (see: www.stivienna2013.com ) and the congress president will be Prof Angelika Stary, with the Chair of the International Scientific Committee being Prof Thomas Quinn.
On the 3rd February I represented IUSTI Europe at a meeting held by the collaboration ‘HIV in Europe’ in London. This collaboration is supported and hosted by the Copenhagen HIV Programme (CHIP) at the University of Copenhagen and the State University Hospital in Copenhagen, Denmark. AIDS Action Europe, a Pan-European non-governmental organisation is actively involved, and a number of influential international health bodies have observer status including the WHO Regional Office for Europe, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), the US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. The aims of the collaboration are to increase awareness of HIV across Europe in particular with a view to preventing complications of late disease through earlier diagnosis. Following on from this I attended a conference organised by the project in Copenhagen where I delivered a plenary talk on ‘Indicator condition-guided HIV testing’. The conference proceedings are available at: www.hiveurope.eu/Copenhagen2012Conference/tabid/
In June the ECDC published a report: ‘Response plan to control and manage the threat of multidrug-resistant gonorrhoea in Europe’
(available at: www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/Pages/home.aspx ). Two new national representatives have been appointed to the council of IUSTI Europe: Dr Norbert Brockmeyer for Germany and Dr Vesta Kucinskiene for Lithuania. The European STI Guidelines Project continues its work. Since my last report the guideline on ‘Organising a consultation for STD’ has been revised and has been published on the website
(see: www.iusti.org/regions/europe/euroguidelines.htm#Current ). The guideline on pelvic infection has completed the consultation process and will shortly be published on the website. The guidelines on balanoposthitis and epididymo-orchitis have been revised and drafts are available on the website for consultation and comments.
A patient information leaflet on genital warts has been completed and published on the website.
The extensive scientific background papers on syphilis from a workshop conducted in Mykonos in 2004 are now available on the guidelines section of the IUSTI website and I commend Dr Pieter van Voorst Vader for having achieved this. I should also like to congratulate Pieter upon his having been made an Officer in the Order of Oranje-Nassau in 2011 for his lifelong services to medicine and worthy causes in the Netherlands.
Revision of the following guidelines is also in progress:
- Sexually acquired reactive arthritis
- Gonorrhoea.
The 14th Conference of the Estonian Union against STI (IUSTI Estonia) was held at the Laulasmaa Spa in Estonia in June. In the same month a congress of the German STI Society was held in Berlin with Profs W Sterry and NH Brockmeyer as Co-presidents and with Prof P Kohl as Senior President. The second Euro-Asian Association of Dermato-venereologists met in Moscow in March with an excellent STI track organised by Professor Mikhail Gomberg. A post-graduate course on STI was held at Bertinoro in Italy, with a number of IUSTI Europe members speaking. The meeting was co-organised by Dr Marco Cusini. Any comments or suggestions on the work of the European Branch or of the European STI Guidelines Project would be most welcome; email me at k.radcliffe@virgin.net
Dr Keith Radcliffe
European Regional Director
IUSTI