Over two thousand health professionals have converged in the city to discuss infectious diseases including global emergencies like zika virus and ebola at the 17{+t}{+h}International Congress on Infectious Diseases.
The congress was inaugurated on Wednesday by State Health Minister C. Laxma Reddy who hailed the gathering as an essential to improve standards of healthcare. The three-day event will see experts from India and abroad, working on infectious diseases, deliver talks and share research.
“India has done well to combat diseases and we need to utilise alternate medicines to further our prowess,” Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, Director-General of Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) said.
The inauguration also saw experts outline the threat from infectious disease and increasing antibiotic resistance in disease-causing agents. “Far from being a diminishing threat, as some had predicted, infectious diseases and the problems of antimicrobial resistance are as challenging now as they have ever been,” said Professor Jonathan Cohen, President of the International Society for Infectious Diseases. The society is organizing the conference for the first time in India.
“Given the continued importance of threats including antibiotic resistance, malaria and more recently, Ebola and Zika viruses, the event underscores the continued importance of infectious diseases in India,” added Prof. Ramanan Laxminarayan Vice-President for Research and Policy at Public Health Foundation of India.
