Contents ESCMID Online News 1 September 2005

Editorial

Editorial The second issue of ESCMID Online News.

From the ESCMID Executive Committee

Message from the President. On 3 April 2005 S. Ragnar Norrby, Stockholm, took over the ESCMID Presidency from Marc Struelens, Brussels. In his message he reviews recent ESCMID achievements and gives an outlook on future priorities of the Society.

Assembly of Members 2005 – minutes. The 2005 Assembly of Members was held on 3 April in Copenhagen during the annual ECCMID. The minutes, which include the activity reports of the Executive Officers, can be found on the ESCMID website.

ESF report on research in Infectious Diseases (pdf 232kb). This report by an ad hoc Expert Group is part of the European Science Foundation policy briefing and has been written in collaboration with ESCMID. It defines research priorities in the fields of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases and recommends initiatives for future action.

Announcement – bioMérieux / ESCMID award 2006. We are looking forward to receiving your nominations by 1 October 2005.

Join ESCMID now. There are many advantages to being an ESCMID member, including reduced registration fees at ECCMID and other events. More information can be found on the ESCMID website.

Health Policy

Mission and tasks of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) (pdf 265 kb). ESCMID is pleased to publish this report on the ECDC by Zsuzsanna Jakab, Director of the Centre.

Scientific Affairs

Writing hospital antimicrobial guidelines (pdf 253 kb). These guidelines have been commissioned by the Editors to support our readers involved in writing or revising hospital guidelines on the use of antibiotics. It describes the conceptual approach in developing antimicrobial guidelines including their scope and is illustrated with examples from the UK.

Europe Watching New and Emerging Resistance (EWNER) – project presentation (PDF 57 kb). EWNER is a new ESCMID initiative to educate and exchange information on circulating resistance patterns. We will keep you updated on its implementation.

16th ECCMID Nice 2006. Preparations for the upcoming ECCMID in Nice are well underway. There will be some improvements made based upon the results from the opinion poll for ECCMID 2005 Copenhagen, conducted after the Congress. An overview of these results can be found in the article, Results from the Opinion Poll. The abstract deadline is for the ECCMID 2006 Nice is 17 November 2005. Make the ECCMID 2006 website part of your “favourite” list.

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You have just received the second issue of the ESCMID online newsletter. Its purpose is to reach out beyond the regular ESCMID membership and to inform the growing community of clinical microbiologists and infectious disease specialists accurately and quickly about relevant issues in their professional fields. ESCMID is pleased to report that since sending out the last online newsletter in May, the number of affiliated societies who distribute this newsletter to their members has risen from 19 to 32.
The first issue of ESCMID Online News was a pilot, which was accompanied by seemingly few problems. However, should you encounter technical problems of any kind please let us know. In this case ESCMID Online News can also be downloaded from the ESCMID website (www.escmid.org, Publications) where previous issues will be archived and made available to the interested public. For more general information about the Online News, please see the editorial from the ESCMID Online News 20 May 2005. Your contributions to the ESCMID newsletters are highly welcome. Please direct them to info@escmid.org.

ESCMID News Editorial Team
Dianne White, ESCMID Publication Assistant
Peter Schoch, ESCMID Managing Director
Marc Struelens, Past President and Chair of the Publication Committee

Message from the President

Dear Friends
With great anticipation I started my 2–year period as ESCMID President. Having followed the Society closely since the end of the 1990s it is striking how ESCMID has developed. Clearly, ESCMID is the leading organisation for those who are professionally active in Clinical Microbiology or Infectious Diseases. Several factors have contributed to this successful development. Most important are the persons who have been or are members of the Executive Board. They are well known experts in their fields and have been willing to contribute a considerable amount of their time to the Society. In particular my appreciation and thanks go to Roger Finch who left the Executive Board last April after having served 8 years as Member, President–elect, President and Past President. He has certainly been an outstanding representative of ESCMID within as well as outside of Europe.

Another person who has left the Executive Committee after many years of service is Claude Carbon whose contribution as Education Officer has resulted in several activities, which have become important for the Society and its members. His initiative to start the ESCMID Summer School has resulted in four successful one–week courses. This year the Summer School moved to Hungary.

Finally, my thanks go to Marc Struelens who has led the Society for 2 years as President and who certainly has advanced our position, not least within the European Union. He will continue to serve as Past President and I am grateful for his continuous support.

At the last meeting with the Executive Committee in Brussels on 13–14 June, several important issues were discussed. Much time was spent on the future organisation of our main annual event, ECCMID. From a poll among those who attended the ECCMID Copenhagen in April this year it was obvious that a majority was pleased with both the composition and the quality of the Scientific Programme. We will therefore not undertake any major changes for the next ECCMID in Nice, 1–4 April 2006. The following year the ECCMID will be combined with an ICC, in response to many suggestions to limit the number of congresses of this type to one in Europe and one in the United States per year. Therefore in 2007 from 31 March to 3 April, there will be a combined 17th ECCMID / 25th ICC in Munich, Germany. Since this meeting will be just before Easter we will be offering a unique opportunity to combine 4 days of excellent science with a ski vacation in the nearby German or Austrian Alps.

Another matter of importance discussed at the latest Executive Meeting was ESCMID’s engagement together with the European Respiratory Society (ERS) in a recently–approved large project financed by the directorate for research within the EU. It has been given the acronym GRACE (Genomics to Combat Resistance against Antibiotics in Community–acquired LRTI in Europe) and will implement a broad scientific approach to study and improve management of community–acquired lower respiratory tract infections. The task of translating the results of the many work packages into workshops, training courses, summer schools and web–based educational material will rest with ESCMID and ERS. We see this as an important step in the relation between the EU and a society such as ESCMID and, importantly, we are now clearly recognised as partners in improving science and medical practice in Europe.

For a long time there has been a tendency towards concentrating scientific affairs in Europe to the West European countries. ESCMID has tried to overcome this problem, e.g. by encouraging and facilitating attendance at ECCMID by young scientists from Central and Eastern Europe through travel grants. For several years we have also participated in meetings of the Interregional Association for Clinical Microbiology and Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, IACMAC. The latest meeting of this Russian society was held in May this year whereby several representatives of the Executive Committee contributed to the scientific programme. This cooperation with Eastern European countries will further expand with ESCMID participating in meetings in the Baltic countries, Georgia and the Ukraine under the leadership of the President–elect, Giuseppe Cornaglia. We see this as a first step towards improved scientific and educational cooperation within an expanded Europe.

Finally, ESCMID now has a European Council consisting of affiliated scientific societies from most European countries. The Council will be an essential forum for communication with and input from as many as possible of those involved in Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiology in Europe. The Council will meet annually during ECCMID. We also hope that this system of affiliation will result in an expansion of ESCMID’s regular membership.

S. Ragnar Norrby
ESCMID President