Chairman Qatar Infectious Disease Conference 2023

The world has witnessed a gradual but steady decline in deaths from infectious diseases over the last 30 years thanks to improvements in sanitation, nutrition, standards of living, education, public health and preventive measures, immunizations, diagnostics, and advances in medical treatment. It is estimated that the global death rates from infectious agents had declined from 232 deaths per 100,000 population in 1990 to 105 in 2019. Despite these reassuring figures, infectious diseases remain a major source of morbidity and mortality and are among the top 10 killer diseases of mankind. They cause millions of deaths every year, most of which are preventable or treatable. In addition, the success achieved over the last 3 decades has somewhat been disrupted by the recent emergence of the highly deadly Covid-19 pandemic which has contributed to the demise of more than 15 million lives around the world, whether directly or indirectly, not mentioning the interruption it caused to childhood immunization, TB and HIV control programs. In addition to emerging and reemerging infectious diseases in different parts of the world, there are other manmade problems that are hampering the fight against infectious agents. This includes, but not limited to, the increasing and widespread antimicrobial resistance among pathogens and the ever-increasing emissions of greenhouse gases that is leading to rapid climate change. 

However, we should continue to remain optimistic in fighting back infectious agents and building on the success we achieved over the last few decades. We, as clinicians specializing in preventing and treating infectious diseases, play a key role in leading this fight. We should be proud of our success in fighting major public health threats such as HIV, TB, Malaria to name a few, and most recently our success in fighting Covid-19. 

In an effort to highlight the importance of infectious diseases and their impact on our health and lives, and to share the latest and cutting edge developments in this very important field of medicine, we as Infectious Disease and Communicable Disease Center at HMC have decided to organize this conference where we present and discuss the latest developments in some of the key areas related to diseases caused by infectious agents. We tried to cover topics that are of interest to a wide range of health professionals. There will be renowned international and local speakers participating at this conference. 

On behalf of the Organizing Committee, I wish to take this opportunity to welcome all of you to join our conference which you will find very enjoyable and highly informative. Your contribution and active participation will certainly contribute to the success of the program. 

Sincerely, 

Abdullatif Alkhal