Kick-Off Meeting
July 2-3, 2019, paris, france
The Kick-Off Meeting of the new phase of the MediLabSecure project was held on July 2nd-3rd 2019 at the Institut Pasteur in Paris, France.

Objectives & Content
The Kick-Off Meeting was the opportunity to officially launch the new phase of the MediLabSecure project with a presentation of its objectives and activities.
Gathering 110 participants from more than 25 countries (representatives from participating countries, partners, stakeholders and funder), this 2-day event successfully initiated the integration of the 5 new countries members from Sahel. It also allowed to introduce the 2 new components with the inclusion of the Veterinary Services in the network of Public Health officials, and the integration of environmental and ecological features in the development of emerging infections' risk assessment and early warning tools.
The meeting consisted in plenary sessions along with parallel sessions to discuss in details the foreseen activities. Other networking events, including also representatives from complementary EU-funded projects, were organized to stimulate and promote interactions with a One Health spirit.
In line with the CBRN CoE initiative, this meeting contributed to put the second phase on track for the next 3 years, to increase the project impact and empower its sustainability towards strenghtening preparedness against vector-borne diseases in the Mediterranean, Black Sea and Sahel Regions.

Click here to download the meeting booklet

Detailed Agenda of the meeting
Presentations
Presentations given during this meeting are available by clicking on the links below.
Day 1
- Lobna GAAYEB, Institut Pasteur, France: "MediLabSecure Project Overview"
- Lobna GAAYEB, Guillain MIKATY (Institut Pasteur, France), Miguel Angel JiIMENEZ CLAVERO (Instituto Nacional de Investigación y Tecnología Agraria y Alimentaria, Spain), Vincent ROBERT (Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, France), Silvia DECLICH (Istituto Superiore dI Sanità, Italy), Paolo CALISTRI (Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale dell'Abruzzo e del Molise, Italy) & Guy HENDRICKX (AVia-GIS, Belgium) : "New phase of the MediLabSecure project"
- Adama GANSANE, Moussa GUELBEOGO (Centre National de Recherche et de Formation sur le Paludisme, Burkina Faso), Thérèse KAGONE, Dramane KANIA (Centre Muraz Research Institute, Burkina Faso) & Lamouni Habibata ZERBO (General Directorate of Veterinary Services of Burkina Faso): "Global multisectoral overview of Burkina Faso" (available soon)
- Mohamed ABDELLAHI BOLLAHI (Institut National de Recherche en Santé Publique, Mauritania), Ali EL BOUKHARY (Nouakchott University, Mauritania), Mohamed Lemine HAKI (Office National de Recherches et de Développement de l'Elevage, Mauritania): "Global multisectoral overview of Mauritania"
- Djibo ISSIFOU (Ministry for Public Health, Niger), Rabiou LABBO (Centre de Recherche Médicale et Sanitaire, Niger), Adamou LAGARÉ (Centre de Recherche Médicale et Sanitaire, Niger): "Global multisectoral overview of Niger"
- Diawo DIALLO, Ousmane FAYE (Institut Pasteur de Dakar, Senegal), Modou Moustapha LO (Senegalese Institute of Agricultural Research, Senegal): "Global multisectoral overview of Senegal"
Day 2
During the second day, a real time feedback exercise was experienced using an online poll allowing to ask questions to the audience and receive their live answers to make the sessions more interactive. Results have been reported in the following presentations.
- Laura AMATO, Istituto Superiore di Sanita (ISS), Italy: "The survey on indicators for early warning and integrated surveillance"
- Maria Grazia DENTE, Istituto Superiore di Sanita (ISS), Italy: "The Multisectoral Risk Assessment Exercise"
- Guy HENDRICKX, Avia-GIS, Belgium : “Early warning tools and modelling, a newly added part to MediLabSecure”
- Michale EDELSTEIN, Chatam House, England: "Sharing the data and benefits of public health surveillance : why and how"
- Paolo CALISTRI, Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale dell'Abruzzo e del Molise (IZSAM), Italy : "Early warning system, One Health approach", "Integration with climatic & environmental variables-web tools"
- Guy HENDRICKX, Avia-GIS, Belgium: "Introduction to technical workshop on Web-based Early Warning System (WEWS) : a first step towards a mediLabSecure early warning tool"
All presentations can be downloaded by clicking here
Pictures


Browse the photo album by clicking on the picture above
ExPERTISE counters
To enhance networking and intersectoral exchanges during the meeting, an "expertise counters" session was scheduled during the lunch break of the second day.
During this activity, MediLabsecure work package leaders animated a counter to exchange on specific aspects of their work package. Besides, representatives from related EU-funded projects (STRONGLABS, MediPIET, Infravec2 and LeiShield-MATI) also participated in this interactive session to present their projects and explored possible collaborations with the audience.

All posters presented during this session are available here.
VECTOR GAME
An icebreaker activity, mimicking a vector-host interaction, was scheduled during the meeting to welcome and facilitate exchanges between experienced and new members of the MediLabSecure network.
As a vector, the new MediLabSecure members from Sahel had to find a host to feed from their MediLabSecure previous experience by completing a form. The first three "vector-host interactions" to bring back the complete form won the game.
Congratulations to the winners!

From left : Moussa GUELBEOGO (Burkina Faso), Habibata Lamouni ZERBO/OUERMI (Burkina Faso), Hafsa MADANI (Algeria), Adamou LAGARÉ (Niger), Lusine PARONYAN (Armenia)

You can download and form your own One Health team to complete the questionnaire!
MOSQUITOES TOOLKIT
A toolkit containing mosquito factsheets developed by the medical entomology working group was handed to every participants from technical working groups. This educational and practical toolkit supports field work by providing an easy access to the characteristics of 10 different mosquito species (short description, distribution, transmission, vector surveillance, etc.)

Mosquitoes Toolkit