ICTMM: This year’s event and looking ahead to 2028
I was delighted to travel to Kuching, Malaysia with Alice our Communications Manager earlier this month, from the 19 to 23 September, for the 21st International Congress on Tropical medicine and Malaria (ICTMM) 2024.
This event happens every four years and this year the topic of the meeting was 'Global responses and interdisciplinary research towards eliminating tropical diseases.' It was also jointly held as the 60th Malaysian Society of Parasitology & Tropical Medicine (MSPTM) Annual Scientific Conference and the 10th ASEAN Congress of Tropical Medicine and Parasitology.
The ICTMM meeting, first held in 1913 in London, was a huge success, with over 1,200 people attending in person, from more than 50 countries.
The opening panel was a great opportunity to hear from a number of prestigious speakers including the Honourable Datuk Amar Professor Dr Sim Kui Hian, Deputy Premier and Minister for Public Health, Housing and Local Government Sarawak, who gave an interesting, stimulating and heartfelt welcome to the meeting and to Sarawak, pointing out some of the health topics he hoped we would cover. We also heard from professor Dr Siti Nursheena Mohd Zain the Organising Chair for the meeting, along with Associate Professor Dr Lucas Low Van Lun, the President of MSPTM, and Dr Malcolm Jones, the President of the International Federation for Tropical medicine (IFTM).
The opening ceremony was a wonderful chance to see some elements of the culture of Sarawak with the welcome dance “Kanjet Ngeleput”. The music and dancing continued into the reception, and was very appreciated.
History was also made at the opening ceremony with the signing of an MOU between the members of the ASEAN Alliance for tropical medicine and Parasitology.
Keynote lectures were provided by professor Dr Balbir Singh and by Professor Santiago Mas-Coma on the topics of the meeting and their careers.
We were lucky to have a stand at the meeting and during the 5 days we met with very many interesting visitors including our Country Ambassador for Malaysia, Dr Giri Rajahram, some of our Grant Awardees, Global Assessors, members and Fellows.
The meeting continued over the 5 days with 9 parallel tracks of abstracts and talks at some points. The content of the meeting covered all aspects of malaria and also many disease specific and systematic areas of tropical medicine, covering many regions of the world.
The meeting was closed on the fifth day after an incredible keynote talk from Professor Dr Sir Nick White who talked to us about antimalarial drugs in the past, present and for the future.
ICTMM 2028
During the meeting we met with the Executive Board and the Expanded Board of the IFTM to make or pitch to host the 22nd ICTMM in 2028, which we were proposing to deliver in Liverpool, UK. I’m delighted to announce that we were successful in our pitch and the 22nd ICTMM will be coming to Liverpool in 2028. Over the course of the next few weeks we will be announcing the date and exact location of the meeting, followed by many announcements over the coming months. If you would like to be kept up to date with news about ICTMM 2028 please do email Alice [dot] Sharman [at] RSTMH [dot] org to sign up to the ICTMM newsletter. More information and a link to sign up will be shared in the coming weeks.
If you would like to involved as a member of one of the scientific committees or your organisation would like to be involved as a sponsor or partner please email me at Tamar [dot] Ghosh [at] RSTMH [dot] org.
Our huge congratulations to the organising committee for a wonderful ICTMM 2024 we look forward to ICTMM 2028!