Our colleague and friend Thomas Abraham fromThe Journalism and Media Studies Centre at The University of Hong Kong invites you to join international experts for a conference on the challenges of communicating the risk of emerging infectious diseases. The emergence of H7N9 avian influenza has illustrated once again the challenges posed by emerging diseases and there is increasing focus on the role that communication can play not merely during a disease outbreak, but also as a tool that could possibly help prevent, or delay the emergence of new pathogens from the animal world passing to humans.
Participants include practitioners and experts from the WHO, UNICEF, the World Bank and other international organizations, communication scholars, and health communication officials from countries in the region as well as the Canada and the US Centers for Diseases Control.
Conference sessions include analysis of the communication around the recent novel coronavirus in the Middle East, case studies of communication at the community level in Asia, and social marketing experiences in responding to diseases.
An online training programme developed at the Journalism and Media Studies Centre will also be launched at the conference.
Professor Malik Peiris, Director of the Centre of Influenza Research will give a lecture entitled "The Emergence of New Diseases: What the future could hold".
Date:
26-28 June 2013
Venue:
Convocation Room, Main Building, The University of Hong Kong
For registration and other details: http://jmsc.hku.hk/beyondsars/
