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Dear Friends and Colleagues,
We wish you a very happy, healthy and prosperous year 2020. I would like to start by thanking the APAAACI officers and full board, all our committees and our national member societies for their valuable contributions, collaboration and collective efforts for the specialty and our patients.
We have an exciting line up of activities to look forward to. Most notably I would like to invite you to please join us at the JSA/WAO Conjoint APAAACI APAPARI Congress 2020 that will take place in Kyoto from September 17-20 this year.
Please submit your abstracts:
We also encourage you not to miss the early registration deadline.
The congress which is also the official 12th APAAACI Congress will also have APAAACI activities jointly with JSA, WAO and APAPARI and will be a major event in our region as a combined effort of 4 organizations. More details here
Following ahead we are also preparing for:
The APAAACI 2nd International Conference 2021 joint TAAACI, Kaohsiung, Taiwan, September 2021.
The APAAACI congress 2022 joint PSAAI in Manila, Philippines, September 2022.
APAAACI Community
We have an exciting line up of activities for 2020 to look forward to.
Asia Pacific Association of Allergy Asthma and Clinical Immunology White Paper 2020 on climate change, air pollution, and biodiversity in Asia-Pacific and impact on allergic diseases.
The APAAACI White Paper 2020 highlights the current status of climate change , air pollution and its impact on respiratory allergies in the countries in AP and calls to action the relevant authorities and governments as well as global bodies like the WHO and UN towards addressing this important health and environment burden in the AP region https://apallergy.org/DOIx.php?id=10.5415/apallergy.2020.10.e11 https://apallergy.org/Synapse/Data/PDFData/9996APA/apa-10-e11.pdf
APAAACI highlights the global efforts at various levels including the efforts of driven people like Greta: https://youtu.be/-Q0xUXo2zEY.
We also like to highlight our recently published Drug Allergy review for our region led by Bernard Thong and his committee.
Drug Allergy Asia Pacific Paper
Surveys:
APAAACI committees have been working hard towards developing specific surveys to assess the current status of allergies in our region and to develop consensus and potentially guidelines.
We have just circulated the Drug Allergy Diagnostic Procedures & Practices 2020 Survey and have received several responses, request those have not yet to submit it in the next days.
We will soon be circulating a series of surveys starting it:
(1) Asthma
(2) Pollen Allergy in AP
(3) Immunotherapy
(4) Urticaria
(5) Rhinosinusitis
(6) Food Allergy
and several others.
These surveys will be sent out to our membership and committees in the near future and we look forward to your active and timely responses to these valuable and important initiatives.
FDA Approves the very first treatment for Peanut Allergy
Although peanut allergy is not the major type of food allergy in our Asia Pacific region some countries especially Australia have an increased burden of it.
With the migration of people, changing patterns of life styles and types of foods in the region, peanut allergy could become a problem in other countries in our region besides Australia.
I would like to highlight here that as of now there is no treatment for food allergy approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Most recently, The FDA announced its final decision to approve Palforzia, a standardized oral immunotherapy (OIT) product for peanut allergy manufactured by Aimmune Therapeutics, Inc. This is a major step that patients and parents of patients have been waiting for several years.
The approved indication for Palforzia is for treatment to mitigate the risk of allergic reactions that may occur, including anaphylaxis, after accidental exposure to peanut in patients aged 4 to 17 years with a confirmed diagnosis of peanut.
Please check the FDA news release for greater details.
In this issue we highlight one of our very active and valuable member society The Allergy Asthma Immunology Association of Thailand (AAIAT).
The Allergy, Asthma and Immunology Association of Thailand (AAIAT) was first established in the year 1977 with the common interests in the field of allergy and immunology in Thailand. Then it was formed to be a society in 1984, The society has been very active in education and training in allergy, scientific conferences and many academic activities and as publish their official journal named “Asian Pacific Journal of Allergy and Immunology’. The society has outstanding leaders at a regional and global level. In fact, Prof. Montri Tuchinda served as the first APAAACI President from 1992 following its origin as the AFPAIS in Bali in 1989. Other leaders include Past President Pakit Vichyanond and past board member Suwat Benjaponpitak. We are currently proud to have Wasu Kamchaisatian on our board. The society has organized the WAC 2007 and several APAAACI congresses including the most recent APAAACI-APAPARI 2018 Congress which was a Scientific and cultural treat. Read more about AAIAT in the Member society highlights of this issue.
I'd like to thank our Web Editors Prof. Bernard Thong and Prof. Amir HA Latiff for their dedicated work towards the website and the literature highlights. I will also like to thank our AP Allergy Journal Editor in Chief Prof. Yoon-Seok Chang for the excellent editorship of the journal. Please don't miss a chance to read the key articles read the Jan issue of the journal.
Stay alert for upcoming news, including the 'Pollen Allergy In A Changing World' publication release by Prof. Jae-Won Oh!
Challenging times kick off the Year of the Rat
No sooner than the start of Chinese New Year, we are suddenly all mesmerized by the impact of the Novel Coronavirus in our daily lives. For people who work in the healthcare industry, it shifts our focus away from our daily tasks to ensure we learn fast and can manage any and all impact this might have in our field of expertise. For some it takes over our lives with contingency planning and preparations as we are part of a larger organization. Travel recommendations change by the day and information flows from various sources, making it difficult to grasp what is really going on. Yet, we are all committed to have our daily lives continue as normal with the least amount of disruption. It Is amazing how we adapt ourselves to mandated temperature screening at work and even in places we visit. The new normal has arrived, at least for now, for many of us in Asia.
We wish our colleagues and friends in China the best, and salute them for their commitment to contain and restore their world and ours alike. We also thank all our colleagues in Asia Pacific region for rising to this challenge and putting up hours of extra work and efforts to contain this epidemic.
Please stay alert for our several initiatives and upcoming activities
Prof. Ruby Pawankar, MD, Ph.D
President, APAAACI
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