PENAPH

First Technical Conference Participants:

The Conference is about to start. It promises to be a great week in Chiang Mai. This time of year is the nicest weather and an important Holiday period in Thailand.

If you are arriving by plane at the Chiang Mai Airport look for hotel staff with a sign for the Mae Ping Imperial Hotel to get the shuttle to the hotel. You are free on Sunday to explore the city. The Hotel is located not far from the Old City Center and the Night Bazaar. On the 10th, a representative of the organizing committee will be present in the lobby of the hotel to greet you and answer any questions from 17:00 to 18:30.

Conference registration starts on the morning of December 11th (Tuesday) in front of Imperial Hall 1 from 8 AM. The Conference Secretariat will be in Imperial 4.

Please note that most presentations have a time block of 20 minutes. Presenters should plan to speak for 15 minutes and leave 5 minutes for questions and change of speaker. Selected presentations marked on the program as innovative presentations have a 30-minute time block. Presenters should plan to speak for about 22 minutes and leave the reminder for discussion and change of speaker. Presentations should be brought to the Secretariat Room by 9 AM of the day of the presentation. The updated program can be downloaded from the conference page on this website

Poster stands will be available. There is no set format for the posters. The stands are 1.8 m in length by 2.4 m in width and normally accommodate 2 posters. You are reminded that font size should be sufficient for the poster to be easily read at a distance of 8 feet.

Looking forward to seeing everyone in Chiang Mai,

Jeffrey Mariner

PENAPH Coordinator

International Livestock Research Institute

Nairobi, Kenya

The PENAPH Technical Conference being held in Chiang Mai on Dec 11 to 13 will hold its conference dinner at Khum Khantoke. This is a elegant garden restaurant with traditional Thai dancing. The conference  dinner is included in the conference registration fee and also open to all those who have waiver of the fee or are supported by a stipend. So, everyone is invited! You can see some photos of the  restaurant venue at:

http://khantoke.com/#

Hope to see you there!

Workshop Registration, Payment of Conference Fees, Hotel Bookings and Visa Procedures

The PENAPH Technical Conference will share experiences in the application of PE, innovative papers describing new developments and host discussion forums on hot topics in participatory epidemiology.

Our registration, payment, hotel booking and visa process are now in place. 63 people have already registered. Please follow the instuctions below.

For those who reqested a stipend, they will receive an individual E-mail tomorrow giving the result.

Step 1: Registration for the workshop is now open at: http://peworkshop.eventbrite.com/ At the registration site, citizens of developing countries and/or full time students from anywhere in the world, can request a waiver of the conference fee. Those granted a waiver will receive a ‘discount code’ for Step 2 Payment of the conference fees within a few days of registering.

Step 2: Payment of conference fees is now open. The fee for those who do not have a stipend or waiver is 175 USD. For those with a stipend or waiver, you will receive a discount code, but still need to go to this site and ‘purchase’ your ticket with a 100% discount using your code. The conference fee will increase to 225 USD after November 22, 2012. Please make payment early to assist us in planning. The site for payment of conference fees is:  http://pepayment.eventbrite.com

Step 3: Hotel bookings at the Mae Ping Hotel are done by downloading the booking form and sending it to the hotel. We have reserved a block of rooms which will be held until October 30th. After that date, we can’t promise that there will be a room in the Mae Ping hotel. There probably will be rooms near by though. If you have not been awarded a stipend, you will need to reserve your room and pay for the first night to confirm the reservation. For those with a stipend, the organizing committee will reserve and guarantee your room. The form can be downloaded at  http://ilri-biotech.wikispaces.com/Events

Questions??? Send an E-mail to: Penaph-Registration@cgiar.org

Visa Procedures:

Participants from the US and Canada, most of Europe and South East Asia may enter Thailand without a visa. The countries requiring visas can be seen in a map of the world at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_policy_of_Thailand

Participants from AFRICA (other than South Africa and Ethiopia), Myanmar, Bhutan, Nepal and Pakistan will need to obtain a VISA IN ADVANCE from the Thai Embassy designated for their COUNTRY OF RESIDENCE. This means that if you are resident outside your own country, you will need to apply to the Thai Embassy designated for the country where you are resident.

The conference organizers can provide guidance and documents to help you get a visa, but you need to start early. You must E-mail a scan of your passport and arrival and departure dates to charatka@chiangmai.ac.th with the subject line ‘Thai Visa for PENAPH Conference.’ Please give your country of official residence so that CMU can prepare the right documents and send them to the right embassy.

The CMU secretariat will provide a letter of invitation from the conference. If you have been awarded a stipend, PENAPH will provide a letter indicating that you have financial support. If you are covering your own costs, you may be required to present a letter or proof of money to guarantee your living expenses will in Thailand. They will also send documents directly to the appropriate Thai Embassy for your country of residence.

You will also require a passport valid for at least 6 months, photos and a copy of your air ticket or electronic ticket

In a review article, ‘Rinderpest Eradication: Appropriate Technology and Social Innovations’ published in Science Magazine on September 14, 2012 about lessons from the eradication of rinderpest, the origins of participatory epidemiology and the contribution of participatory epidemiology to rinderpest eradication are described.

You can see the abstract at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1223805

So, in referencing PE, we can now reference Science!

The Mini-Symposium on Participatory Epidemiology (PE) at ISVEE 13 was well attended. For the keynote, the meeting room was filled to capacity with more interested people listening from the hall. Most people stayed on to hear the subsequent 6 papers. The topics covered included PE practice in research and surveillance as well as two papers evaluating PE methods. An application of PE in Japan looked at the psychological impact of the response to the last FMD outbreak there. PENAPH was interested to learn that the PE Manual has been translated into Japanese. Versions  now exist in English, Spanish, French, Russian and Japanese.

The presentations were followed by an open discussion that was frank and constructive. Participation in the discussion was very broad and covered topics like appropriate experimental design for validating techniques, ethical approval for research using participatory designs and PE as a tool to understand incentives and align stakeholder goals.

The PENAPH key note presentation can be viewed below or at Update on the Participatory Epidemiology Network for Animal and Public Health (PENAPH). The organizers for ISVEE 14 to be held in 2015 in Mexico have suggested a PE session and a pre or post ISVEE course. The bottom line is that participatory epidemiology has become conventional in epidemiology!