The Fogarty International Center of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) is planning an influenza research workshop at Estelar Hotel Miraflores in Lima, Peru, June 25-28, 2012. This will be the eleventh regional meeting held as part of the FIC-initiated Multinational Influenza Seasonal Mortality Study (MISMS), an international research collaboration that analyzes epidemiologic and phylogenetic patterns associated with influenza virus circulation. Past meetings/workshops have been held at the NIH and in the Americas (USA, Argentina), Asia (Nepal, China, and Vietnam), Europe (Portugal and Denmark), Africa (Senegal), and Oceania (Australia). These meetings are designed to help build analytical capacity for epidemiologic and molecular studies of influenza, identify potential collaborators, and disseminate new scientific findings that may serve to inform influenza control strategies. More information about previous meetings can be found here.
This meeting/workshop is intended for public health officials, epidemiologists, biostatisticians, and virologists who conduct research on influenza and other respiratory diseases in Latin America. Participants will also have a forum to discuss reports of influenza disease burden in populations similar to their own, as well as the opportunity to review and evaluate their data utilizing new analytical techniques and phylogenetics methodologies.
The first two days of the meeting (June 25-26) will feature scientific presentations by MISMS collaborators and meeting participants on influenza research methodologies and the dissemination of results. Topics of interest include influenza epidemiology, transmission dynamics, phylogenetic and molecular analyses, virus surveillance, disease burden, control strategies, and other public health issues.
The last two days of the meeting (June 27-28) will consist of a technical workshop during which MISMS staff will assist collaborators with the analysis of their own influenza data. This free workshop is open to those interested in the mathematical and statistical modeling of epidemiologic and virologic data, as well as the analysis of phylogenetic and antigenic data. In order to participate, you will need to submit a brief (less than 400 words) description of the dataset you would like to analyze through our registration website. Please note that you should be able to bring this dataset with you to the meeting, as well as have access to relevant analytical software. Participants who are interested in attending the workshop, but who do not currently have data available, may be able to attend based on space availability. If this is the case for you and you want to be considered for the technical workshop, please feel free to e-mail us.
The deadline for abstracts has passed, but dataset descriptions are still being accepted.
More information about the the schedule of events and hotel room options will be available shortly. If you have any questions about this workshop or about the MISMS Research Initiative, please do not hesitate to contact us at ficmisms@mail.nih.gov.
Draft Agenda Summary
Draft Agenda (Times are approximate)
Day
1 - Monday, June 25: Scientific presentations
8:30am - 9:00 am Registration
9:00am - 10:10 pm Session I: Welcome and MISMS overview
10:10-10:40 am Coffee Break
10:40 am - 12:00 pm Session II: 2009 Pandemic influenza in the Americas: Lessons learned 12:00 pm-1:30 pm Lunch
1:30 - 3:20 pm Session III: Influenza in the Americas: Surveillance and seasonal patterns
3:20 - 3:50 pm Coffee Break
3:50 - 5:10 pm Session IV: Etiology of influenza and other respiratory diseases
Day
2 - Tuesday, June 26: Scientific presentations
9:00 am - 10:30 am Session V: Influenza in swine and birds: Transmission and risks for humans
10:30 - 11:00 am Coffee break
11:00 am - 12:40 pm Session VI: Genetic evolution of influenza and other respiratory viruses
12:40 - 1:30 pm Lunch
1:30 - 3:00 pm Session VII: Influenza vaccination issues
3:00 - 3:30 pm Coffee break
3:30 - 5:00 pm Session VIII: Dataset presentations and roundtable discussions
5:00 - 5:30 pm Closing remarks and opportunities for future collaboration
Day 3 & 4 - Wednesday, June 27 & Thursday, June 28: Technical Workshops
Topics covered by the technical workshops will include time-series and spatial analysis, wavelets, disease modeling, basic reproductive number estimation, phylogenetics, and data visualization. There will also be opportunities to work with NIH investigators individually and in small groups. SAS, Stata, and R code will also freely be available for distribution.
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MISMS Workshops |
Workshops
for epidemiologists and virologists led by the US National
Institutes of Health Fogarty International Center
Following
the meeting, a workshop describing the methodology to evaluate vital statistics,
virological, genomic and economic data to describe influenza disease burden and
inform policy will be held. It will consist of small-group sessions designed for epidemiologists, virologists, and policy-makers who are interested in evaluating datasets that can be brought
to the meeting for further analysis. Workshops will concentrate on methodologies
to evaluate time-series data for regional or national analysis of influenza disease
burden, assessments of control programs, and evolution of influenza viruses. Participants
will have the opportunity to learn analytical tools that can be applied to national datasets
and also to formulate further collaborations on bi-national and multinational studies.
Please note that participation in workshop sessions will
be limited and will be based on submitted dataset descriptions that participants may want to further analyze.
It
is highly recommended, but not required, that participants in the workshop bring:
- a laptop with statistical analysis software (i.e. SAS, STATA, or R)
- an influenza
dataset (vital statistics data, influenza isolate data, and vaccine coverage) preferred, but not required
Individuals
who attend the workshop will have the opportunity to learn about:
- time series
analysis
- spatial / temporal relationships
- influenza genomics tools
- data management issues
- SAS / Stata / R code
- strategies for evaluating vaccine benefits in a country using mortality data
- long-lasting research and surveillance collaborations
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If you would like more information about this meeting or about MISMS, please contact us at ficmisms@mail.nih.gov.
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