The Infectious Diseases Society of America, which has its annual meeting as part of IDWeek, has a particular emphasis on global health. In fact, “IDSA prioritizes promoting sufficient U.S. investment in global infectious diseases responses and research, and in using the voices of physician scientists to inform multilateral and national global health policies. IDSA is a trusted leader in shaping and advancing international and national policies and investments in global HIV, TB, health security, and antimicrobial resistance,” according to the global health policy page of the organization’s website.
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So it is no surprise that the global face of infectious disease is a prominent focus of IDWeek 2018 as exemplified by the Global ID track.
Although many of the overall sessions have a global ID component, with research from other countries prominent in IDWeek 2018 presentations across all topics, there are particular sessions that focus on more prominent global issues and diseases. For example, tuberculosis and HIV in a global context are strongly represented in many sessions.
But of unique interest also are emerging diseases and those that are, for now, primarily geographically localized. For example, the Global Health and Travel Medicine session on Thursday features presentations on a wide range of such diseases, including babseiosis, brucellosis, Burkholderia pseudomallei, Chagas disease, and chikungunya virus.
Similarly, the session titled Adventures with Globally Acquired Infections on Friday covers diseases that are comparatively rare in the United States, but endemic in many areas of the world, including Leishmania major infection, Lassa fever, and malaria.
Friday’s late-breaking oral abstracts feature Emerging Infections, including details on recent outbreaks of Andes virus, Enterovirus A71, and Shigella that have spread into the United States.
And uniquely, Global ID and Transplant ID merge in a special session titled When Transplant Tours the World featuring disease risk in transplantation from a global perspective, including the growing issue of “transplant tourism.”