Aiming to support and ensure the success of the 18th International Congress on Tropical Medicine and Malaria, which ends tomorrow in Rio, Fiotec employees are taking turns to participate the event. On the opening day (09/23), the Projects Analysts Renata Correa and Cintia Gama were at Royal Tulip Hotel, where they assembled over two thousand researchers from 59 countries. Since the beginning of the week, the Accounts Receivable Coordinator, Larissa Silvino, and Accounts Receivable Assist Fabio Ramos are on duty at the event, which ended in 09/27.
During the first day of the ceremony, the president of the Scientific Committee of the event and head of the Laboratory of Malaria Research of Institute Oswaldo Cruz (IOC/Fiocruz), Cláudio Tadeu Daniel-Ribeiro, praised the work of Fiotec. “Without the work of the institution, it would not be possible to organize the event of this magnitude”, he said.
Conducted by the International Federation of Tropical Medicine and the Brazilian Society of Tropical Medicine (SBMT), the Congress, hosted by the IOC, offers a schedule with 63 round tables and conferences, 33 workshops, 1,600 electronic posters and more than 450 lecturers. All activities discuss progress and challenges for malaria control, diseases like Chagas disease, leishmaniasis, schistosomiasis and dengue, and various bacterial, viral and fungal infections.
History
According to the event organization, Brazil is a country suitable to host the congress for having a wide variety of biomes and the largest rainforest in the world. The Amazon rainforest covers an area equivalent to 40% of South America and 5% of Earth’s surface and 61% of its length is located in Brazilian territory. Moreover, Brazil has the largest hydrographic network in the world, providing 20% of the world’s fresh water.
As a consequence of enormous biodiversity, various tropical diseases circulate in the country, as well as other non-circulating, but which are likely to exist due to favorable conditions, which has been the subject of research and concern over the recent years.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), about one billion people are affected by tropical diseases – such as Chagas disease, leprosy, dengue, malaria and leishmaniasis - in 149 countries worldwide.
*IOC information
