Disease Transmission And Air Travel -- Two Upcoming Meetings

Main Category: Infectious Diseases / Bacteria / Viruses
Also Included In: Swine Flu;  Flu / Cold / SARS
Article Date: 14 Sep 2009 - 2:00 PDT

email to a friend   printer friendly   opinions  

The Institute of Medicine and National Research Council examine aspects of infectious disease transmission, including that of H1N1, in two public meetings next week.

The Institute of Medicine will host "The Domestic and International Impacts of the 2009 Influenza A H1N1 Pandemic: Global Challenges, Global Solutions" to explore lessons that can be learned from experiences with the virus in the Southern Hemisphere, where it has been circulating over the past several weeks, as well as how the virus evolves and is transmitted, and the state of the public health response. The meeting will take place Tuesday, Sept. 15, from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Wednesday, Sept. 16, from 8:15 a.m. to 5:15 p.m. at the National Academies' Keck Center, 500 Fifth St., N.W., Washington, D.C. Participants include representatives from the World Health Organization, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and national and international academic, private, and government institutions. An agenda of the meeting can be found here.

Also next week, the National Research Council's Transportation Research Board will host "Research on the Transmission of Disease in Airports and on Aircraft" to provide a forum for discussion of how diseases are transmitted in aircraft, how air travel is a factor in investigating the spread of a disease, and current areas of research that could be applied to monitoring and preventing the transport of infectious diseases via aircraft. Several case studies will be examined, including norovirus, tuberculosis, and swine flu. The meeting is being held Thursday, Sept. 17, from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Friday, Sept. 18, from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the National Academies' Keck Center, 500 Fifth St., N.W., Washington, D.C. Participants include representatives from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Israel Ministry of Health, U.K. Health Protection Agency, academic and government organizations, and Boeing Commercial Airplanes. An agenda of the meeting can be found here.

Source
National Academies

• Additional
• References
• Citations