Burnet Institute researchers and programs will be prominent at the 50th Union World Conference on Lung Health in Hyderabad, India, from 30 October to 2 November 2019.

Senior Principal Research Fellow, Professor Steve Graham will chair a symposium on ending paediatric TB through action, and a session focused on regional child and adolescent TB initiatives, and present on the diagnostic options for asymptomatic contacts aged 5–14 years.

Early experiences with preventive treatment for child contacts in an MDR-TB high-burden community in Papua New Guinea (PNG) is the subject of a presentation by Burnet Deputy Program Director (Health Security), Dr Suman Majumdar.

Social worker Tess Keam will outline the challenges and successes of a patient education and counseling program in Daru, PNG, in an oral abstract session focused on TB training and education initiatives to build capacity and improve outcomes.

A special feature of the Conference will be an exhibition of photographs from the Burnet-supported Photovoice program to build peer relationships between young adults on TB treatment.

The exhibition provides an opportunity for the images and stories of these young people to be shared with the international TB community to increase understanding of the lived experience of taking treatment for TB in Daru.

The Union World Conference on Lung Health is the world’s largest gathering of clinicians and public health workers, health program managers, policymakers, researchers and advocates working to end the suffering caused by lung disease, with a focus specifically on the challenges faced by low-and lower-middle income populations.

Of the 10 million people who die each year from lung diseases, some 80 percent live in these resource-limited settings.

Organising international conferences on tuberculosis (TB) and related subjects has been a core activity of The Union since its founding in 1920.

Find out more about Burnet’s tuberculosis research.