Source: The Third Affiliated Hospital
Written by: Third Affiliated Hospital
Edited by: Wang Dongmei

The 26th European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) was successfully held from April 9 to 12, 2016 in Amsterdam, Netherlands (www.eccmid.org). ECCMID takes place annually in the spring and is recognized by academia, the clinical setting and industry as the largest European congress for the presentation and discussion of research in the fields of clinical microbiology and infection. This year’s 26th ECCMID has come to a close with record-breaking numbers, with 11,640 people from 123 countries attending. There are over 200 sessions, including 11 keynote lectures, over 100 symposia and oral sessions, 20 educational workshops and 20 meet-the-expert sessions.

Associate Professor Feng Peiying (Department of Dermatology, The Third Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University) was invited as chairman and speaker at a meet-the-expert session. She gave a presentation on the topic of “Neglected tropical skin and soft tissue fungal infections”. Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) are a diverse group of communicable diseases that prevail in tropical and subtropical conditions in 149 countries and affect more than one billion people, costing developing economies billions of dollars every year. Till now, 17 diseases are considered NTDs by WHO, while mycosis is not on the official list. Hopefully, human mycetoma will be added to the list of neglected diseases at the next World Health Assembly in Genera, Switzerland, in May 2016. During the congress, Associate Professor Feng Peiying discussed with Prof. Ahmed Fahal (Sudan), Prof. Flavio Queiroz-Telles (Brazil), Prof. Nelesh P. Govender (South Africa), etc. on the topic how to control these neglected mycoses, especially the Neglected Tropical Implantation Mycoses (ITIM), such as sporotrichosis, chromoblastomycosis, phaeohypomycosis and lacaziosis etc., which may have even greater global burden than mycetoma, and these conditions also deserve the world’s attention. To the control or elimination of the ITIM, different groups of private, public, and international organizations, as well as pharmaceutical partners and national ministries of health, should work together.