Quality Research done at PNGIMR | Pneumonia Colloquium receives timely donations | Director’s 2010 Welcome | Preparations for Pneumonia Colloquium begins | A 12- week MCAIS pilot study completes |14 EPLD delegate visits IMR | DSS Staff attend Internation meeting | Many still lack TB knowledge, according to study | New fuel tank maximizes savings at IMR
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DSS Staff attend Internation meeting

Three Health and Demographic Survey Lands Systems (HDSS) staff at Wosera attended the 9th INDEPTH Network Annual General Meeting in India, in October last year. Lawrence Rare reports.

The 9th INDEPTH Network Annual General and Scientific Meeting was held in Pune City in India from the 26–29 October 2009 at the International Institute of Information and Technology Center. The theme of the conference was on Poverty, Health and Demographic Dynamics - Evidence from South – South Collaborations.

Dr Suparat Phuanukoonnon, Elias Namosha and myself from the Wosera HDS site attended this very important conference which was sponsored by the INDEPTH Network. As with members of the INDEPTH Network who presented various research and scientific papers, we were also privileged to present our Wosera HDSS posters and a research paper. The conference was an interesting one with lots of scientific papers being presented from various research groups and individuals from different HDSS sites around the world. It was also a great opportunity for us to be there meeting experienced scientists and other researchers who shared ideas and experiences on heath demographic and surveillance systems from various HDSS sites.

Although I am engaged only administratively doing Demography work these days, I could already compare and picture our Wosera HDSS with other bigger sites from my previous experiences of the site. This I belief was an opportunity for us to learn and to know from other sites if we are to expend or improve our sites. Dr Phuanukoonnon is our site team leader and she gave us lots of opportunities to attend scheduled meetings on working group. These meetings are organized to focus and report on current status and plan for the near future on migration and urbanization, cost of illness, fertility, TB, adult aging, vaccination and child health and many more. The working group gives great opportunities for sites to write study proposals and get grants from the Indepth Network to run on sites .

I was also fortunate to be selected by the AGM organizing committee to be crowned by the Indian Chiefs according to Indian customs in recognition for various services provided to the Indepth Network. I was selected as a field supervisor along with other professors and Scientist of various fields. That was a great honour, which I will never forget.

Ever since I worked with the Wosera HDSS and other sites of the Institute, I’ve never had opportunities to expose myself to outside world or attend similar conferences but this was my first time and I really enjoyed the conference. I therefore would like to acknowledge and thank the following people for their great support in making this trip possible for me to attend the conference. Prof. Peter Siba, Dr Ivo Mueller and Dr Suparat Phuanokoonnon for making everything possible; the Indepth Network Secretarial and the PNGIMR management for the sponsorship; finally my friend, Mr. Mark Buka and Sharon Aisa for your extra efforts to get the Passport and Visa work in time, so I did not miss the trip to India.