The second international meeting of the JSPS Core-to-Core Programme entitled “Establishment of South-South and Triangular Cooperation Core for Elimination of Asian Zoonotic Schistosomiasis” was held in Vientiane, Lao PDR for three days from 29 to 31 October. A total of 24 participants attended the meeting: 12 representatives from the Philippines, Lao PDR, Cambodia and Indonesia, 4 project-related researchers from South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand, and 8 from WHO SEARO and Japan. The meeting was also broadcast online and made widely available to local Lao officials and experts and researchers from related countries interested in the project. During the meeting, information was exchanged on schistosomiasis elimination efforts in each country, and awareness was raised of common problems, such as inadequate methods of prevalence monitoring (diagnostics) to assess the effectiveness of mass drug administration (MDA). The conference also included a presentation on the current status of WHO strategies and interventions to eliminate schistosomiasis. On the first day of the conference, a technology transfer workshop was also held on ‘Application of environmental DNA analysis to infectious disease control’. As a result of the conference, the establishment of the South-East Asia Schistosomiasis Elimination Surveillance Initiative (SEASEI) was proposed and approved, with the aim of continuing collaboration between the countries concerned to eliminate schistosomiasis from Asia.
(Reported by Shin-ichiro Kawazu)
