The 2nd Steering Committee of ECOMORE 2 project has been held in Hanoi on 15-16 January 2019.
From the last Steering Committee held in Phnom Penh in January 2018, necessary steps to effectively start all Work Packages’ activities have been completed as below:
- 15 January 2018 signature of the Partnership Agreement between IP and IPC and IP and IPL
- 16 January 2018, lifting of suspensive conditions on the first payment
- 30 January 2018, LNO for selection of the Institut for Research and Development (IRD) to manage the transversal component on climate and of LSTM for the component in Philippines
- 16 February 2018, 1st instalment of 1.5 M€
- August 2018 signature by MoH of the Partnership Agreement respectively between IP and NHL and IP and NIHE
- 05 December 2018 signature of the Partnership Agreement between IP and RITM
- 13 December 2018 signature of the Partnership Agreement between IP and IRD
Some Partners had to postpone the implementation of activities due to complex administrative issues but now all components are on track.
The time lag for undertaking field studies in the different countries has resulted in sharing experience on operational difficulties, especially for the projects working on vector control by auto-dissemination and so to better plan logistics for smooth implementation of the system.
The country teams and the coordination team involved in ECOMORE project made comprehensive presentations to show progress of their work package and preliminary results obtained to other participants. Presentations are available on “publications” menu on www.ecomore.org
The context of limiting topics to dengue and leptospirosis triggered particularly stimulating scientific discussions which thus were particularly worthwhile.
Key discussions concerned especially remarks about installing i) monitoring and servicing the In2care system and consequently possible recommendations to integrate the system in a vector control strategy; ii) documenting efficacy of the system; iii) improving capture of mid-severe suspect cases of leptospirosis at hospital level; iv) lab testing to better validate confirmation of positive cases of leptospirosis
We can say that we are halfway through the project and the Steering Committee gave the opportunity to define a strategy to better promote the findings of the project at the regional level and to issue possible recommendations to health authorities.
The discussion between partners, coordination and AFD has reached to the conclusion that grouping presentations on ECOMORE studies in the framework of regional major conferences should be beneficial in terms of impact and visibility in comparison with organization of a final symposium. Participants endorsed the option of submitting the candidature of NIHE to organize the international conference 2021 of the ILS (International Leptospirosis Society).
The Steering Committee in consideration of progress of the Project towards its objectives, and targeted results, in the light of discussions and comments from the pool of external experts, issued recommendations in terms of adjustments to the original activities program and corrective actions on the methodology of the different Work Packages.
The next Steering Committee will be held in Vientiane at the end of year 2019 and an ultimate Steering Committee will be organized at the actual end of the project to ensure a proper knowledge transfer between partner countries’ teams, coordination team and AFD.
All participants were invited to participate in cocktail dinner at the French Embassy in Hanoi by the French Ambassador and so enjoyed this privileged moment organized by Dr Thomas Mourez, the Health Cooperation Officer.
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