“The experience of Covid leaves us important lessons from which we need to start again for organizing health care that can no longer be found unprepared in the face of pandemic threats, to address these, the most effective solution passes through a strong territorial microbiological diagnostic activity, the definition of a national pandemic plan and close collaboration between the various actors involved. In a new context, cynical microbiologists are ready to do their part, making their experience and knowledge available to the country “. It is on these premises that the 49th National Congress of the Italian Clinical Microbiologists Association opens in Rimini on Saturday 26 February at the Congress Center (Amcli), the first after two years of blockade due to the pandemic.
At the event, which will be held in attendance, More than a thousand professionals are expected who will meet in seminars and symposia of which only two are specifically dedicated to Covid. Sunday will be held on the role of Clinical microbiology in the two-year pandemic, with a focus on the reorganization of structures and the enormous effort carried out for the diagnosis, genomic typing of the virus and its variants. On Tuesday 1 March, in the light of what emerged during the congress, a final update seminar on Covid will be held.
“The Rimini event wants to ideally re-establish what happened in these two years in which, as never before, the health community has found itself facing such an aggressive pandemic, with the full-blown problems of Microbiology”, he comments Pierangelo Clerici, president of Amcli and director of Uo Microbiologia Asst Ovest Milanese. “I am thinking of maternal and fetal infections, the treatment of immunocompromised and frail patients, infections in transplant patients, respiratory infections up to the serious threat of infections sustained by resistant antibiotic microorganisms. All problems that have been painstakingly managed in these two years and that, in a context of return to normality, must return to the center of the activities of Clinical Microbiology “.
Reorganization of the system will also be discussed in the light of the NRP funds
The congress event in Rimini celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Amcli, in reality the celebration was supposed to take place in 2020 but for obvious reasons it has been postponed, and coincides with the renewal of the executive offices which will be followed in March by the appointment of the executive. “I hope that from this congress, one of the first to be held again in attendance, it will emerge awareness of the role that microbiologists have played in addressing the pandemic, operating in urgency like many and facing a structural shortage of staff (in many cases less than 30% of the staff) thanks to the sacrifice and commitment of all. Only in this way were we able to transform the swab analysis and report service into 24 hours a day ”, continues Clerici.
During the congress there will also be discussions on reorganization of health care in light of the resources provided for in the NRP. An opportunity not to be missed, with a view to a design that aims at the self-sufficiency of devices and a territorial organizational structure designed and ready to be activated promptly. In this regard, science highlights how the temporal space in which dangerous pathogens make the leap of species has been reduced and potentially serious threats to world health.
“We will dedicate a specific meeting to this topic, with a focus on the possibility of early identifying any upcoming pandemic virus threats”, concludes Clerici.