Re: Third European Influenza Conference; Sept 2008
Multinational Influenza Seasonal Mortality Study meeting
The Multinational Influenza Seasonal Mortality Study programme in conjunction with the Fogarty International Center, National Institutes of Health will hold a meeting and workshop
directly following the ESWI conference.
17 September General Meeting Afternoon Meeting
(14:00 - 18:00)
18 September Introductory workshop Morning Event
18-20 September Advanced workshop Two and a Half Day Event
The Fogarty International Center (FIC) of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) will hold the 3rd regional meeting and workshop of the Multinational Influenza Seasonal Mortality Study (MISMS) on September 17-20, 2008 in Vilamoura, Portugal, following the 3rd European Influenza Conference organized by ESWI.
The MISMS is an expanding international collaborative effort to analyze national and global mortality patterns associated with influenza virus circulation, transmission patterns, virus evolution and control strategies including vaccination.
The objectives of the 3rd MISMS regional meeting and workshop are as follows:
1) To review the epidemiology of influenza in temperate and tropical climates and outline the achievements of the MISMS collaboration through presentations of studies on influenza mortality impact, transmission models, evolutionary and migration patterns, and vaccination impact.
2) To demonstrate the utility of secondary source data to study the epidemiology of influenza.
3) To work with current collaborators and establish new collaborations for bi-national and multinational studies.
4) To communicate findings to the scientific community and policy makers.
5) To analyze data during a workshop on methodologies for influenza studies, including time-series analysis, vaccine effectiveness studies, molecular epidemiology and and phylogenetic studies
The first half day of the meeting on the afternoon of September 17th will include presentations by MISMS-affiliated scientists on their recent findings on influenza epidemiology, influenza genomics, and vaccine issues.
The morning of September 18th will feature an introductory workshop which will offer training sessions on modeling techniques.
A more advanced workshop will be held from noon on September 18th to September 20th to continue working with current MISMS collaborators on existing studies and to initiate studies with new collaborators who are interested in analyzing their own data.
General information about the MISMS project and the MISMS meeting in Vilamoura, including a tentative agenda, can be found at
www.origem.info/misms. The meeting will take place at the Tivoli Marinotel, the same venue as for the ESWI conference. While there is no registration fee for this meeting, due to limited space we ask you to please register on our website. Please note that participation in the advanced workshop will be by invitation only. To request an invitation, please register on our website and email a brief description of your research interests and the type of dataset you wish to analyze to
ficmisms@mail.nih.gov.
Please contact us with any questions at
ficmisms@mail.nih.gov.
http://www.eswiconference.org/MISMS.asp
