GFRA 2015 Scientific Meeting

The Global Foot and Mouth Disease Research Alliance (GFRA) will hold its 2015 scientific meeting in Hanoi, Vietnam from 20-22 October 2015.  For more information, visit our conference website www.gfra2015.org. 

The purpose of this workshop is to bring together experts in the field of disease ecology, epidemiology and transmission with specific focus on the transmission of FMD. We envisage that approximately 70 participants may be interested in attending a two-day symposium to discuss the latest information disease transmission, epidemiology, vaccinology and viral ecology. The attendees would be expected to actively participate in the meeting by bringing knowledge of the most up-to-date research and the latest technology in order to dissect the selected topics or reviews of the literature. On the third day we intend to have a “table top” exercise to foster interaction between disease control authorities and policy makers from South East Asia and research scientists. This table top exercise will be closely coordinated with the regional FMD control program (SEA-FMD) in order to maximize the communication and data sharing among the different players generating relevant information about FMD and also communicating the main gaps in knowledge that need to be filled with ongoing and future research. We believe it would be valuable for these two groups to interact and identify how to enhance our knowledge of FMD control, for example, understanding the relationship between current vaccine antigens used and viral strains circulating in the region or exploring the economic impact of FMD and the successes and shortcomings of current control strategies. We would like to attract leading research scientists and representatives from major sectors involved in disease control including government agencies, food producing and pharmaceutical companies to the debate. Through this meeting we plan to identify improvements that can be made in the short and long terms and strategies to fill important knowledge gaps. The identified gaps will provide guidelines to current and future research in the region.

The venue is the Pullman Hotel (http://www.pullmanhotels.com/gb/hotel-7579-pullman-hanoi)

Deadline for early bird registration is 27 July 2015

Deadline for abstract submission is 27 July 2015

There are possibilities for sponsorship applications, please see www.gfra2015.org!  The deadline for applications is 29 June 2015.