This Tuesday the XXVI Congress of the Latin American Federation of Parasitology (FLAP) was inaugurated, accompanied by the XV Central American and Caribbean Congress of Parasitology and Tropical Medicine, the X Cuban Congress of Microbiology and Parasitology, the VII National Congress of Tropical Medicine and the VII International Seminar on HIV infection and AIDS in Cuba.

According to the Cuban News Agency, Dr. María Guadalupe Guzmán Tirado, president of the FLAP, at the inauguration of the conclave stressed that the COVID-19 pandemic taught us everything that science can do when we set our minds to it and the need for collaboration, solidarity, information and teamwork to face a challenge

Until next November 4, topics such as malaria, arboviruses, resistance to antimicrobials, infections associated with health care, cholera, neglected diseases and tuberculosis will be part of the virtual exchange between Cuban and foreign specialists.

The president of the Cuban Society of Microbiology and Parasitology and the Organizing Committee of FLAP 2022 called to defend the One Health approach in the face of the reemergence of dengue, outbreaks of yellow fever and Ebola in Africa, alerts for polio, cholera in Haiti, measles , increase in malaria, monkeypox, the report of severe acute hepatitis of unknown etiology and the possibility of new variants or lineages of COVID-19.

In addition, the expert insisted, it is necessary to guarantee integrated surveillance, the application of technological advances, the development of laboratories, diagnosticians, medicines, vaccines and disease pathogenesis studies.

For her part, Dr. Yanaris López Almaguer, director of the Pedro Kourí Institute of Tropical Medicine (IPK), said that the events take place in the context of the 85th anniversary of the institution, a national and international reference center for the study of communicable diseases. and headquarters of the Cuban Society of Microbiology and Parasitology.

She stated that these days will be propitious for updating, discussion and exchange on the role of parasitology and microbiology in the face of emerging, re-emerging and forgotten diseases.

Regarding the relevance of the academic meetings, Dr. José Ángel Portal Miranda, Minister of Public Health, pointed out that more than 400 participants from 25 countries have registered who will evaluate, in a frank dialogue of knowledge, issues of incidence in the morbidity table of the countries of the region.

From the IPK, the head of the sector presented the conference Cuba's response to face COVID-19 and its challenges, a disease from which no nation could escape, and ratified the inevitability of the link between health workers, scientists and governments to protect people.

It meant that the confrontation with SARS-COV-2 was a great feat for the health systems and in the case of Cuba, it recognized the approval of the national confrontation plan, the updating of the protocols and the application of a model that included epidemiological components, management of health services and science.

Portal Miranda assured that the greatest strengths were in the integrated work with all sectors, the link with universities and with the biopharmaceutical industry for the development of equipment, supplies and medicines that contributed to the care of seriously ill patients and the immunization of the population. .

After the many lessons left by the coronavirus and the current health challenges, the Cuban minister urged making these days an opportunity to put the experience at the service of humanity.