WHO validates Brazil’s filariasis elimination

The Seoul meeting contributed to an international process seeking a more coherent research agenda.

WHO lists a regional traditional medicine workshop in Riyadh on 17–19 September; this is the last day.

The Eastern Mediterranean consultation contributed to WHO’s broader priority-setting exercise.

The Riyadh workshop examined research needs in a region with its own inherited medical knowledge traditions.

The regional meeting was part of coordinated discussions about research, rather than an approval of particular therapies.

Public health action and monitoring reduced transmission in previously affected places.

The validation recognized sustained work by Brazilian services and communities.

Elimination as a public health problem does not rule out future imported infection.

Pakistan met WHO criteria for eliminating trachoma as a public health problem.

Trachoma control combines care for affected people with ways to reduce new infections.