The eighteenth edition of the International Course on Dengue and other Arboviruses began on Monday at the Pedro Kouri Institute of Tropical Medicine (IPK) with the aim of training health personnel in the prevention and control of communicable diseases.

The event is being attended by 12 experts from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) to provide advice on the management of arboviral outbreaks, and health officials from countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, United States, Paraguay and Cuba.

At the inauguration, Dr. José Ángel Portal Miranda, Minister of Public Health of the largest of the Antilles, told those present that given the increase in febrile syndromes in Latin America and the Caribbean, it is necessary to strengthen capacities to predict and identify communicable diseases and reduce their social and economic impact.

He highlighted the work of the IPK, a centre of national reference and international scope, made up of competent staff with high performance in diagnosis, medical care, teaching and research related to the prevention, control and elimination of communicable diseases.

Guadalupe Guzmán, founder of the IPK, said that the 17 previous editions of the course have enabled the training of 3,485 participants from 81 countries in the updating of the main results in the field of epidemiology.

Through conferences, symposiums and workshops, the course will update on the current epidemic situation of the presence of dengue, zika, chicungunya and oropouche in the region, advances and challenges in the clinical management of cases and differential diagnosis, said the virologist.

The event will have a practical section, where participants will delve into the molecular diagnosis of arbovirosis, the application of bioinformatics, medical care for patients, vector control and entomo-virological monitoring, Guzmán said.

The International Course on Dengue and other Arbovirosis will run until 30 August and is also organised by the PAHO/WHO Collaborating Centre for the Study of Dengue and its Control, the Cuban Society of Microbiology and Parasitology, the Ministry of Public Health of the Republic of Cuba, WHO and PAHO.

According to PAHO, there are more than 11 million suspected cases of dengue fever this year, with more than five million confirmed cases of this arbovirosis, the most prevalent in the region.