From October 29 to 31, the Second Sino-French Symposium on Transdisciplinary Infectious Diseases was held in Wuhan. Minister of Ministry of Health Mr. Chen Zhu, Deputy Secretary of Provincial Party Committee and Governor of Hubei Province Mr. Wang Guosheng and French Ambassador to China Madame Sylvie Bermann attended the opening ceremony and delivered speeches.
The opening ceremony was chaired by Vice President of Chinese Academy of Engineering Mr. Fan Daiming. President of French Mérieux Foundation Mr. Allen Mérieux, President of French Academy of Medical Science Mr. André Parodi, Member of Standing Committee of Provincial Party Committee, Vice Governor, and Director of United Front Work Department of Provincial Party Committee Mr. Zhang Daili, Vice Governor of Hubei Province Mr. Guo Shenglian, and Secretary-general of Hubei Provincial Government Mr. Wang Xiangxi attended the ceremony.
Mr. Chen Zhu pointed out in the opening ceremony that Sino-French cooperation and communication had a long history and the cooperation achievements in health care were great with collaborative areas continuously being expanded. Currently, China is engaged in health care system reform which will add more vitality to the cooperation between China and France. In the last three decades, the emerging and reemerging infectious diseases presented a diffusion trend across the globe which generated enormous threat to people’s health and life and great loss to the society. Effective prevention and control of emerging infectious diseases is the common task that the international society must face. He suggested that in order to confront the great challenge together the scientists and teams of both China and France must strengthen communication, build platforms and share experience; put the cooperative programs into practice and expand cooperative areas; intensify scientific and technologic cooperation and realize advantageous complementarities to achieve greater breakthrough.
This 3-day symposium was jointly sponsored by Chinese Academy of Engineering and French Academy of Medicine. and undertook by Wuhan Institution of Virology under Chinese Academy of Sciences and etc. Experts of China and France conducted communication and discussion on several themes such as etiology, epidemiology, anti-infectious immunity and infectious diseases control, bio-safety and bio-ethics, etc.