Manipal: The two-day 13th Annual Conference of Indian Academy of Tropical Parasitology, ‘TROPACON 2019′, organized by the Department of Microbiology, Kasturba Medical College, Manipal concluded here on Sunday. The conference was preceded by a hands-on workshop for various diagnostic techniques for the diagnosis of various parasitic infections on Friday.
The conference had researchers, physicians, public health personnel and parasitologists discussing and sharing their experiences on how to improve upon the old methods and develop new strategies to eliminate parasitic diseases from the country.
The organizing chairman Dr Kiran Chawla and secretary Dr Vinay Khanna put together a schedule covering the recent updates in epidemiology, clinical perspectives and diagnostics in both adult and pediatric parasitic diseases. About 100 delegates from various states took part in this event.
Dr Vinod Bhat, Vice Chancellor, Manipal Academy of Higher Education was the Chief Guest for the inaugural function. Dr. Subhash Chandra Parija, Vice chancellor of Sri Bala Ji Vidyapeeth, Puducherry and the President of Indian Academy of Tropical Parasitology (IATP) addressed the gathering.
DR Geethalakshmi, Vice Chancellor, Dr MGR Educational and Research Institute, Chennai, Dr. Poornima Baliga B, Pro-Vice Chancellor, MAHE; Dr Chiranjay Mukhopadhay, Associate dean, KMC, Manipal, Dr Avinash Shetty, Medical Superintendent, Kasturba Hospital and Dr UjjalaGhoshal, Secretary, IATP were present.
The theme of the conference, “Targeting Parasites: Improving old methods and developing new strategies” focused on bridging the gap between older and newer techniques to target and eliminate parasitic diseases as the field of Medical Parasitology is undergoing dramatic changes in diagnostics, treatment and vaccine research.
In India, traditional methods of microscopy based diagnosis and management of parasitic diseases are still the mainstay of approach in many laboratories. In recent years, there has been a lot of development focusing on serological, molecular, and proteomics based diagnostics.
