What: University of Texas at El Paso researchers and officials from California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas will meet to discuss surveillance and control of chikungunya, an emerging mosquito-borne virus that threatens the U.S.-Mexico border.
When: Monday, Feb. 23 and Tuesday, Feb. 24. Please see agenda for details.
Where: El Paso Natural Gas Conference Center, UTEP campus
National mosquito experts will gather at The University of Texas at El Paso to discuss and strengthen U.S. border plans related to the surveillance and control of mosquito-borne viruses. The meeting was created to prepare for the likely onslaught of chikungunya, an emerging infectious disease from the Eastern Hemisphere that first appeared in the Caribbean last year; it is expected to spread north to the southern United States.
“With the recent understanding that chikungunya virus is endemic in Mexico, we felt that a meeting to assess virus surveillance activities along the U.S.-Mexico border would be appropriate at this time,” said Doug Watts, Ph.D., an internationally recognized expert on mosquitoes and the viruses they transmit. “The opportunity to bring together those responsible for infectious disease surveillance will lead to improved strategies for the detection and control of emerging infections, such as chikungunya and dengue viruses that threaten the health of the border communities.”
The goal of the meeting is to strengthen mosquito disease surveillance and control. The experts will focus on four objectives during the two-day conference:
1) improved diagnostic and surveillance capacity for chikungunya
2) expanded training for health care providers in recognizing and managing chikungunya cases
3) improved surveillance of mosquitoes that can carry chikungunya
4) improved local mosquito control capacity
Attendees will include scientists from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, such as Chief of the Arboviral Diseases Branch Roger Nasci, Ph.D., and Scott Weaver, Ph.D, an expert in human infections and immunity at The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston.
The media and public are invited to listen in as the scientists present their areas of specialty and work together in response to the possibility of a widespread epidemic.
The meeting is supported by UTEP’s Border Biomedical Research Center and a grant from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities.