18th congress of the international society of travel medicine (CISTM18)

After several years of COVID-19 impacting on the ability to meet face-to-face, the forthcoming 18th congress will enable the International Society for Travel Medicine to meet in Basel from May 21-25, 2023 in Basel. Personal contacts are pivotal for scientific exchange, for developing novel research ideas together with an international audience. The Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH), which has recently expanded into a sustainable four story headquarter building in Allschwil on the outskirts of Basel, will host the congress at the Basel Messe.The Scientific Program Committee has built a program that addresses many of the contemporary issues in travel medicine and migrant health which will trigger the long awaited personal exchange in participative discussions. There will be state-of-the art lectures, prominent speakers, workshops and debates, ample opportunities to discuss controversies in travel medicine, as well as free oral communications on latest research findings.As the chair of the Local Organizing Committee (LOC), Christoph Hatz will ensure as the scientific coordinator at the Swiss TPH that participants of CISTM18 will engage closely among themselves and promote scientific exchange in the fields of migration and travel medicine. The last two years have been extremely challenging as the global COVID-19 pandemic has greatly disrupted international travel including migration and medicine in tropical countries, and has resulted in many of medicine practices being substantially curtailed and even temporarily suspended. The theme "Dawn of a New Era in Travel Medicine" provides many stimuli to the international audience which will cross-fertilize the Swiss participants. Some of the program highlights include plenary and symposia on the impact of COVID-19 and climate change on travel, antimicrobial resistance, tick-borne diseases, migrant health, and the rising threat of artemisinin treatment failures for malaria-infected travelers. Introductory sessions for novel travel medicine providers as well as others on highly specialized topics such as migrant health, a focus on leishmaniasis, human trafficking, and dengue are further topics. The congress offers an excellent opportunity for Swiss scientists and physicians to learn and exchange scientific developments and new venues of research in the respective fields.The official scientific program will start on May, 21st 2023 at 13.00h and end on May, 25th 2023 at 13.30h, thus five congress days. Following the official congress program (from 15-18h, at the Swiss TPH in Allschwil), an international, three-hour symposium will be conducted by the Swiss Specialist Society for Tropical and Travel Medicine together with the Swiss TPH and guests from the respective partner countries Tanzania, Peru, Thailand and India to foster the international scientific exchange between Swiss physicians and scientists together with established partners from the South..