The Double Helix

Travel Grants Offered for Trainees Attending 1996 ICAAC/IDSA Meetings

Travel grants to the 1996 Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC) and the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana, September 16-20, are being sponsored by the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases (NFID) and Zeneca Pharmaceuticals. The grants will provide free round-trip coach class airline tickets to New Orleans for promising young physician investigators for whom travel funds are limited and needed.

Applicants must be authors or coauthors of papers or posters being presented at ICAAC or IDSA. The distance from the applicant's residence and workplace to New Orleans must be 450 or more air miles.

Applications are open to those in training in infectious diseases, or those in internal medicine, pediatrics, surgery, or obstetrics/gynecology training programs, who have an interest in infectious disease research, and who will present their scientific research at the meetings. A letter from the Section, Division, or Department Chairman requesting support must accompany applications.

Surface travel and lodging costs are excluded. All applicants must be residents of the United States and employed by US institutions.

Completed applications must be postmarked no later than Friday, August 30, 1996. Funding for this program is limited; eligible applications will be funded on a first come, first served basis.

To receive an application, write to NFID Travel Grants, 4733 Bethesda Avenue, Suite 750, Bethesda, MD 20814-5228, (301) 656-0003, FAX (301) 907-0878, e-mail NFID@aol.com.

Wyeth-Ayerst Laboratories also offers a program to assist physicians in training to attend ICAAC. Through direct grants to these physicians, the Infectious Disease Fellows Reporter program offers participating fellows reimbursement for a substantial portion of all costs associated with travel to ICAAC. Unlike NFID's program, participation in the Wyeth-Ayerst Fellow Reporter program is not limited to those presenting research at ICAAC.

One important goal of the Reporter program is to expose fellows to new scientific knowledge and technology in infectious disease. This information provides the foundation for the program's primary objective. Following the conference, participating fellows prepare and deliver a brief report at their respective institutions on a topic of their choice from any of the scientific presentations given at the meeting. Fellows receive tape recorders and transcription services at the conference to assist in the preparation of their reports. In this way, the program widens the sphere of knowledge to benefit colleagues who cannot attend the conference.

Participating fellows are also encouraged to submit reports of particular interest to The Resident Reporter, a medical journal distributed to residents in the US. Wyeth-Ayerst invites chairs of departments of infectious diseases on an annual basis to select and recommend fellows for this program.

CDC and NFID Sponsor Workshop on Post-Exposure Management of Health Care Workers

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases (NFID) sponsored a workshop entitled "HIV Post-Exposure Management of Health Care Workers," March 4-5 in Atlanta, GA.

A number of recent developments have necessitated this in-depth review of the subject since the Public Health Service "Statement on Management of Occupational Exposure to Human Immunodeficiency Virus, including Considerations Regarding Zidovudine Postexposure Use" was published in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) on January 26, 1990. Included among these developments were the results of ACTG 076 indicating that zidovudine (ZDV) could substantially reduce the likelihood of perinatal transmission of HIV, information on the development of resistance to antiretroviral drugs, information on newer antiretroviral drugs and viral load measurements, and CDC's publication of a case-control study of risk factors for HIV seroconversion in health care workers after percutaneous exposure to HIV-infected blood (MMWR 1995;44:929-933). In the CDC case-control study, analysis revealed that after controlling for other factors associated with increased risk for infection, the use of ZDV Post-exposure was protective.

The workshop was attended by over 100 professionals representing a wide field of disciplines including immunology, pharmacology, virology, epidemiology, hospital epidemiology and infection control, clinical medicine, nursing, public health, and the pharmaceutical industry. In addition to participants from the United States, researchers from Canada, Denmark, France, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom attended the meeting. Topics covered included the biology of initial HIV infection, antiretroviral agents that may be considered for prophylaxis, efficacy of ZDV prophylaxis in humans, toxicity of antiretroviral chemotherapeutic agents, the optimal regimen for post-exposure prophylaxis, implementation issues, and duration and counseling for post-exposure follow-up. The proceedings of the workshop will be published in a scientific journal.

NFID received an unrestricted educational grant from Glaxo Wellcome, Inc. to help support the conference.