Tag: European Report

European Report 2012

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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

European Report 2013

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IUSTI Regions: Europe

Report from the IUSTI European Regional Director

 

IUSTI Europe Council

Prof Mikhail Gomberg (Russia) has been elected as the new Treasurer of IUSTI Europe, replacing Dr Simon Barton (UK). Dr Jackie Sherrard (UK) has been elected as the first IUSTI Europe Membership Secretary. Jackie has worked hard to establish a robust membership database for the Branch.

 

IUSTI Europe Congresses

Members of IUSTI Europe are very much looking forward to a series of excellent annual European STI congresses starting of course with the combined IUSTI/ISSTDR meeting in Vienna 14-17 July.

In 2014 the IUSTI Europe Congress will take place in Malta, 17-20 September. The president of the congress will be Dr Joe Pace. The conference venue will be the Radisson Blu, St Julian’s (see: www.iustimalta2014.org). Site visits to Malta have been made by the European Chair and Regional Director (Drs Airi Poder and Keith Radcliffe) as well as by the the Chair of the International Scientific Committee, Dr Jackie Sherrard. An International Scientific Committee has been established and a draft scientific programme produced.

In 2015 the IUSTI Europe Congress will take place in Barcelona and the President will be Dr Marti Vall Mayans. The meeting will be held 24-26 September.

In 2016 the European Congress will be held in Budapest hosted by the Hungarian STD Society under its President Prof Viktoria Varkonyi.

There are currently only two IUSTI national associations in the world and I am pleased to say that both of these are European; both have held meetings since my last report; Prof Mikhail Gomberg held a meeting of IUSTI.Russia in Moscow and Dr Airi Poder held a meeting of IUSTI.Estonia in that country.

This successful model of national associations is being viewed with interest in other European countries and serious expressions of interest in setting up further national associations have been received from the Ukraine and from Azerbaijan.

The third congress of the Euro-Asian Association of Dermato-venereologists (EAAD) took place in Odessa, Ukraine 31 May-4 June. As part of the meeting a very strong one day STI course was organised by Prof Mikhail Gomberg in which many international speakers participated. The EAAD has been established as a non-profit association registered in Latvia.

 

European STI Guidelines Project

The project has obtained the endorsement of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious diseases (ESCMID, see: www.escmid.org/ ); Prof Mario Poljak from Slovenia has joined the Editorial Board as the official liaison with ESCMID.

The guideline on, ‘Organising a consultation for STI’ is now on the guidelines section of the European website (see: www.iusti.org/regions/europe/euroguidelines.htm ) and has been published in the International Journal of STD and AIDS (2012; 23: 609-612). The revised guideline on pelvic infection has been posted on the website. The revised guideline on gonorrhoea has also been posted on the website and this is particularly important given the concern over developing antibiotic resistance. Prof Magnus Unemo (Sweden) has published an article in Eurosurveillance (2012; 17: 47) drawing attention to the guideline and its implications for clinical practice.

Work is ongoing on revising guidelines on: syphilis, proctitis, LGV, hepatitis epididymo-orchitis, HIV testing, balano-posthitis and sexually acquired reactive arthritis. A completely new guideline on partner management is in development. The project is also producing patient information in English about all the conditions addressed in the guidelines. All guidelines and patient information can be accessed at the guidelines web page. At the same page are links to patient information on gonorrhoea in German and information on a range of conditions in Romanian.

 

Dr Keith Radcliffe
June 2013

European Report – 2017

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Recent activites of IUSTI- Europe

  1. IUSTI-Europe Conferences

    Helsinki, Finland 2017: The 31st annual conference was held in Helsinki, Finland in September 2017 in conjunction with the Finnish STI society. The focus of the conference “STIs – connecting people” . The local organiser was Eija Hiltunen-Back and the chair of the scientific committee was Stephan Lautenschlager. There was a excellent programme with particiapnts from around the world.

    Upcoming conferences:

        • IUSTI World and Europe conference in Dublin, Ireland – 27th -30th June 2018
        • Tallinn, Estonia 5th – 7th September 2019
        • Bochum, Germany 2020
        • IUSTI World and Europe and ISSTDR, Netherlands, 2021

  2. Communication

    A social media policy for conferences has been developed and was in place in Helsinki. There is now an active Twitter presence at conferences to disseminate presentations. A linkedin group https://www.linkedin.com/groups/8235039 has been established to share STI information.

  3. IUSTI-Europe Summer Schools

    IUSTI Advanced Course on Sexually Transmitted Infections 2017: Test and Treat The second IUSTI advanced course in took place in Helsinki over 2 days, immediately before the conference. This was chaired by Angelika Stary and Marco Cusini. This was very successful with 53 students from 24 countries. IUSTI-Europe provided eight scholarships for young European scientists to attend and some National societies also provided funding. It is planned to run a introductory course in 2018 in Bertinoro, Italy and further advanced course in Tallinn in 2019.

  4. STI Guidelines

    The guideline methodology was undated early in 2017. 5 guidelines had been updated in the last year, and published on the IUSTI website and in journals, a further 6 are currently being reviewed. A pocket summary of the IUSTI-Europe Guidelines is in development. A joint IUSTI Europe-EDF-EADV meeting was held with an agreement for a common strategy for STI guideline production.

  5. Cooperation with other international organizations

ECDC: The relationship between IUSTI and the ECDC continues to develop. Liaison officers have been appointed by both parties to enable closer cooperation. Currently there is joint work on a project to look at the completeness,and improve European STI data reporting.

EDF: there are strengthening ties with the European Dermatology Forum (EDF), with IUSTI-Europe activities on the official agenda of the Annual Dermatology Forum Meeting

EADV: on the IUSTI Europe activities on the Annual Dermatology Forum. Two EADV Task Forces in the field(s) of STIs have been officially (re)approved