Dear Friends and Colleagues,
Warm Greetings from APAAACI.
As the end of 2021 fast approaches, we wouldn’t have predicted another year to be what it has turned out to be. With a couple of weeks to go, most of us are glad to see this year pass. As we continue to live with the pandemic, with emerging multiple variants, changes in the epidemiology, clinical patterns, the ongoing vaccination roll outs, novel therapies, we must gear up for another challenging year ahead. We appreciate the many colleagues and health care workers who have progressively fought on the frontlines and bereave those who lost their lives in doing so.
Amid the COVID-19 global pandemic and the challenges posed, APAAACI has been active on many fronts. We have been able to achieve some excellent milestones, most notably organizing the first virtual APAAACI 2021 International Conference. This also includes our progress on the e-learning front, with numerous resources, web lectures, literature highlights, the APAAACI journal, the Junior APAAACI Allergy Leadership Forum and Café (JAAFCA), Science to Action, Science at the Edge, Motivational Conversations with Global Leaders, collaborations with our member societies, sister organizations and global bodies and many other expansions. APAAACI’s leadership and board have been working hard to take forward our initiatives. Our committees have been working hard to develop surveys and publications on key topics in our specialty and for training.
Our website contains a growing number of global reference materials and APAAACI TV has an increasing number of outstanding, interactive webinars led by global experts on a variety of topics including COVID-19. If you have not yet subscribed, we highly encourage you to subscribe to APAAACI TV on YouTube today. The organization has been active since its foundation over 30 years ago. We recommend that you review our APAAACI History Book, if you have not done so before.
In the future, we will continue to broadcast more live webinars on our YouTube channel with the best of the best leaders in the Allergy, Asthma and Immunology community. Therefore, it is important that you subscribe to our channel as soon as you can so we won’t miss the announcements. Please follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
Junior APAAACI Allergy Leadership Forum and Café (JAAFCA)
Following the first JAAFCA online program, we rolled out our second episode on 15 November 2021 from 18:00-19:30, with the theme: Clinical Pearls and Updates in Drug Allergy of the AP Region. This forum was led by Dr. Philip Li, with workshops conducted by Dr. Valerie Chiang, Dr. Matthew Krummenacher, Dr. Ticha Rerkpattanapipat, and Dr. Xin Rong Lim. The edition managed to attract even more viewership and stronger user engagement. WATCH NOW
To end the year with JAAFCA, we organised the third episode on 14th December 2021, with the theme: Current Concepts on Allergen Immunotherapy. This forum comprised of workshops conducted by Dr. Catherine Meryll C. Aquino (Philippines), Dr. Yuan Zhang (China) and Dr. Su-Boon Yong (Taiwan). WATCH NOW
APAAACI collaborates with the UCARE 2021 in Hiroshima, 9 – 11 December 2021
The UCARE conference was launched in 1997 in Barcelona as a biennial international conference of urticaria followed by Istanbul in 2019. APAAACI is proud to have collaborated with the 3rd UCARE conference in Hiroshima the very first in Asia Pacific, led by President Michihiro Hide ( Co- Chair of APAAACI Urticaria committee). The conference had 510 delegates either in person or virtually. Spread over 3 days the talks that ranged from those from UCARE centers on ongoing and upcoming projects, a tribute to Mario Sanchez-Borges, many cutting-edge lectures, oral presentations, and case studies provided a comprehensive, most updated, interacting and exciting scientific program.
APAAACI MENA Allergy Webinar Series
With a significant growth over the past few years in the Asia Pacific region, APAAACI embarked on another journey of sharing knowledge and educational activities in the MENA region. This milestone comes as part of the vision of APAAACI in offering motivational and inspirational learnings from global leaders to address the burden of allergic diseases. APAAACI MENA – Allergy Series 2021 is targeted for MENA Region Health Care Professionals to Update them on the Best Clinical Practices, the Cutting-Edge Science and Clinical innovations in Asthma, Allergy & Clinical Immunology. This resulted in 2 webinars in 2021 in July and December with a vision to add more activities in the future. Read More
APAAACI-FOCIS Collaboration
Fostering interdisciplinary approaches to both understand and treat immune-based diseases, APAAACI recently collaborated with FOCIS with a very successful FOCIS symposium at the APAAACI 2021 International Conference.
APAAACI has now applied to become a member of the Federation of Clinical Immunology Societies. We look forward to doing more joint initiatives with them in the year ahead!
EAACI Journal Editor’s Pick – December
Women in Science and Medicine. Pawankar, R., Castells, M., Akdis, M., Nadeau, K. and Leung, A. (2021). Allergy .2021;76:3578-3580. Read Now
APAAACI 2022 PSAAI@50
APAAACI will have its biennial congress APAAACI 2022 Congress PSAAAI@50 in Manila next year, from 1-4 October 2022. The Congress will be jointly hosted by APAAAACI and the Philippine Society of Allergy Asthma and Immunology (PSAAI). With a greater element of prestige, it will also be a golden jubilee celebration of the PSAAI. We look forward to updating you on more event information and seeing you in Manila next year.
All things aside, we wish you all a great year end and a brilliant start of the new year.
Professor Ruby Pawankar
APAAACI President
