I am pleased to announce that the next European Congress on Tropical Medicine and International Health will be hosted in Verona, Italy, from 6 to 10 September 2009. This will be the 6th Congress organised under the auspices of the Federation of European Societies for Tropical Medicine and International Health (FESTMIH), after Hamburg, Liverpool, Lisbon, Marseille and Amsterdam.

Why in Italy?
A century ago, in October 1909, the Nobel Price Camillo Golgi founded the “Lega Nazionale contro la malaria”: and it took about half this century to eradicate malaria from Italy, where a number of parasitic diseases, ranging from visceral and cutaneous leishmaniasis to strongyloidiasis, are still endemic. Italy is a natural bridge between North and South, as well as between Eastern and Western European countries. Formerly a country of emigration, Italy now shares with other Mediterranean countries the burden of the recent, heavy wave of immigration. We found therefore opportune to associate to the main Congress a First Mediterranean Conference on Migration and Travel Health.

Besides dealing with the classical aspects of Tropical Medicine including basic science, diagnostic/therapeutics and disease control, the congress will maintain a constant and central focus on its main theme: Equity, Human Rights and Access to Care.

We strongly encourage all interested professionals to seize this opportunity to present their research and discuss strategies to reduce inequality, to broaden the access to basic health services and to reach the underserved.

The Congress will also put a great emphasis on Transferability of Research results into actual practice. We are interested to discuss how evidence obtained from research is transferred/not transferred into actual policy and practice.

We will also discuss the North-South gap in health research, in all main aspects: space devoted to global health in medical journals; role of researchers from the South in relevant publications; share of research which is actually devoted to priority areas; important gaps that remain to be filled in research in tropical medicine and international health; difficulties in financing health system research.

It will be a challenge to all participants to make of this event something more than a “classical” congress: let’s make use of this opportunity as a platform for open debate, discussion, proposals of practical and evidence-based solutions to the advantage of those who most need them.

Zeno Bisoffi
Congress Chairman
Centre for Tropical Diseases
S. Cuore Hospital, Negrar (Verona)