The 6th MERIAL Symposium on Parasitosis and Arthropod-Borne Diseases took place in Tunis gathering over 120 climatology, parasitology and veterinary specialists to discuss the impact of climate changes and other factors on parasitosis and vector-borne diseases. This year researchers from North Africa were participating for the first time in focussing on exotic diseases emerging in Europe and Mediterranean basin. The outcome of this year’s meeting was modelization for a better risk management, including the launch of a new climatic biomathematical model called “FleaTickRisk”.
For 7 years now, MERIAL, a joint venture of Merck & Co., Inc. and sanofi-aventis and one of the leading animal health companies in the world, has organized an annual meeting to monitor and discuss diseases both caused by parasites and transmitted by parasites, called the “MERIAL European Parasitology – Arthropod-Borne Diseases Symposium”. The first Symposium was held in Amsterdam in 2001. Since Zagreb 2006 and Marseille 2007, the editions are focusing on climate changes (so called “global warming”) and epidemiological changes in parasitic diseases.
The past few years have seen the emergence of new diseases, or re-emergence of existing ones, sometimes with changes in their epidemiology. In its previous symposia, MERIAL has reviewed these epidemiological changes (changes in geographical distribution, prevalence, and pathogenicity of vector-borne diseases) and their possible causes.
Today, the theme is much broader as most of these diseases affect both man and animals (zoonoses) and incidence is increasing due to climatic changes, so their management requires a multidisciplinary approach. This year in Tunis, climatologists and socio-economists joined their veterinary and human medicine counterparts to exchange on this vast topic, but also to discuss common points and differences and set up collaboration programmes between institutes, universities, etc in various countries of Europe and North Africa.
